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I don't often watch the weekend talk shows. When I do, I'm usually shocked by what passes as conventional wisdom. It's as if some of the pundits on these shows spend the week in a sound-proof, thought-proof room, then are programmed with inanities 15 minutes before the red light goes on. There's no escaping it. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC and, yes, Fox, too. Let me give you just one example from this past weekend. On Saturday, I listened in amazement to Jane Hall of American University say the following on "Fox News Watch" in explaining why she thought the...

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha! Love this sketch! SNL Jane you ignorant sluthttp://www.hulu.com/watch/2306/saturday-night-live-point-counterpoint-lee-marvin-and-michelle-triola

Jane Hall: "I'm also frankly uncomfortable with Beck who I think should be called out as somebody whose language is way over the top and scary."

Yet she used to debate Bernie Goldberg all the time on O'Reilly.

Former Fox News contributor Jane Hall said Sunday that one of the reasons she left the cable network was because she was uncomfortable with host Glenn Beck who she believes "should be called out as somebody whose language is way over the top and scary."Fox watchers know Hall as one of the regular liberal panelists on Saturday's "Fox News Watch" as well a frequent guest on "The O'Reilly Factor" where she was typically paired opposite former CBSer Bernard Goldberg.

This week's Fox News Watch was a mix of the candid, the intriguing and the downright funny. Let's start with the humor. Good-hearted liberal panel member Jane Hall, wringing her hands over the fact that the Wright matter has injected race into the campaign, got off this bit of unintentional comedy. JANE HALL: Unfortunately, this is going to be what's going to be associated [with Obama]. I mean, it's like Willie Horton, except that Obama knew Reverend Wright. So it's unfair to pin this Wright stuff on Obama, except for the fact that it's . . . fair. View video...

Interesting panel discussion about "24" on last evening's Fox News Watch. On the one hand, lefty Neal Gabler actually defended the show. Mentioning that he likes Keith Olbermann "very much," Gabler continued: "I disagree with Keith Olbermann in this situation. I look at '24' as being like a 527 [tax-exempt groups that engage in political activity]. It's bringing up that issue about terrorism, it certainly serves the Bush administration. But unlike the 9-11 show that was on ABC which specifically cited Bush as a great hero, this does not do that. It is entertainment, and I don't think it ought...

How does Jimmy Carter know when he's outstayed his welcome on the international stage? When even Jane Hall, the genial liberal of Fox News Watch, suggests it's time to turn him out to pasture. Carter's latest book, an anti-Israel diatribe incitingly entitled "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" brought the panel together - in criticism of the 39th president. Lefty Neal Gabler took the first shot, noting the way Carter went after Jewish critics of his book: "he's criticizing book reviewers of his book for being too Jewish, which I think is very odd." Said conservative commentator Cal Thomas: "Carter has...

by Mark Finkelstein October 1, 2006 - 09:39 Being a regular Fox News Watch viewer, there was nothing surprising, tuning into this evening's discussion of the Clinton-Chris Wallace dust-up, in hearing lefty panelist Neal Gabler take his employer and colleagues to task. Among his moves, Gabler: - Claimed "this network's reputation [presumably as right-leaning] precedes it." - Asserted that Chris Wallace "did not frame the question properly. He asked why didn't you do more? Which is like asking 'will you stop beating your wife?'" - Defended Wallace only at the expense of other Fox colleagues: "He is not a Hannity,...

by Mark Finkelstein September 24, 2006 - 07:02 Summer's over, but it's still way too warm for hell to freeze over. And yet . . . The usually reliably liberal Neal Gabler has lambasted Jim McGreevey for his more-than-we-needed-to-know confessions about his homosexuality. Even more shockingly, Gabler singled out Sean Hannity for praise for conducting the toughest interview of the Oprahfied former governor. On last evening's Fox News Watch, there was unanimity from right to left that McGreevey's book, 'The Confession', and his media blitz to promote it, was an unseemly undertaking in which his family paid the price while...

Fox News Watch is proving to be one of the most disappointing programs airing on the Fox News Channel. Purporting to be media critics, the show's panelists make accusations about the media that are themselves in dire need of correction. In a show during the presidential campaign, a panelist and "media writer" named Neal Gabler astonished the audience by claiming that a "secret email" proved that a New York Times reporter was actually biased against John Kerry. Despite repeated requests to provide the explosive evidence, he refused to do so. Host Eric Burns also refused to respond to several requests...

Ad features vets who claim Kerry "lied" to get Vietnam medals. But one accuser quickly recants, and other witnesses disagree. August 6, 2004 Modified: August 6, 2004 A group funded by the biggest Republican campaign donor in Texas began running an attack ad Aug. 5 in which former Swift Boat veterans claim Kerry lied to get one of his two decorations for bravery and two of his three purple hearts. However, one of the veterans who appears in the ad has already recanted his principal accusation against Kerry, in an interview with the Boston Globe Some other veterans who accuse...

NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw can't escape the MRC -- and that annoys him. In an interview in the latest edition of the Columbia Journalism Review magazine, Brokaw denied he's guilty of any liberal bias and seemed to be referring to the MRC's CyberAlert as he called the constant drumbeat of criticism from the MRC "a little wearying" since the MRC's "fine legal points" are "everywhere every day." In the interview, Jane Hall, a regular panelist on FNC's Fox Newswatch, an assistant professor at American University's School of Communication and a former Los Angeles Times reporter, raised the MRC: "The...