FOX News Channel’s (FNC) Alan Colmes will relinquish his role as co-host of Hannity & Colmes at the end of the year.
In announcing his decision, Colmes said, “I approached Bill Shine (FNC’s Senior Vice President of Programming) earlier this year about wanting to move on after 12 years to develop new and challenging ways to contribute to the growth of the network.
Although it’s bittersweet to leave one of the longest marriages on cable news, I’m proud that both Sean (Hannity) and I remained unharmed after sitting side by side, night after night for so many years.”
Who’d have thunk it?
(Not even counting what is evidently FOX News’ first gay “marriage.”)
If you’ve never seen the show, it’s a great set-up: Hannity rips the crap out a centrist or liberal guest, and then Colmes comes in and whines for a couple seconds to provide the “fair and balanced” part.
Now, probably not so much
he’s no Liberal.
I know full well that Colmes was never meant to provide a real counterpoint to Hannity’s right-wing blather. But it would be fun to watch someone actually stand up to Hannity, and actually hit him hard with some rhetorical points. A few of my favorite ideas:
Hannity & Moore
Hannity & Olbermann (How about Hannity and Remy?)
Hannity & Frank
And not neccessarily a liberal counterpoint, but at least it would be good theatre:
Hannity & EBIII
n/t
YODA!
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p>”Question ask you? What question has within it answer already? A Jedi asks not these things. You are reckless.”
The basketball team, not the Pentagon.
I thought that was just a potted plant next to Hannity for the last several years.
Just sayin’.
That’s right, NOBODY!
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p>None of these sackless liberals could handle having someone sitting beside them with a differing opinion. Can you imagine if an opposing view cast a shadow over Keith’s bombastic rants? “Keith, what you just said is not true”… LOUD thunder crashes “How dare you not agree with me… off with his head!”.
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p>Colmes may have been weak by many of your standards here, but at least he was a voice which is more than I can say for any of the liberal blowhards out there!
Maddow and Mathews certainly spend a lot of time with people they disagree with on air. However, we’re talking about show formats here — not about glandular endowment.
… great at having conservatives on and getting into their ideas at great length is Moyers. His show has had tons of conservatives who spoke at great length (not a shouting match). That being said, Moyers has always been about the exploration of ideas behind the news, not mere reporting.
of both shows (and Olberman’s) does not show many conservative guests appearing. As a matter of fact, when there us any dissenting opinions it seems like Maddow gets very uncomfortable. It’s like they can’t handle an opposing view and are thinking “are you crazy to think that” or “surely you don’t believe what you’re saying”. Watch her talk to Pat Buchanan when both are guests on other MSNBC shows, she’s uncomfortable the whole time.
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p>KBusch, why doesn’t Olberman ever have a conservative on to tussle with? Why can’t MSNBC put some balance on the tube other than Morning Joe? And when are so-called journalists going to remove that misnomer and being renamed as Democratic “pundit” such as Mathews, Harwood, Richard Wolffe and all the others who have forgotten there is a difference between journalism and commentary.
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p>As for Colmes leaving… I hope sincerely that they find a strong liberal to sit opposite Hannity. One sided conversations are boring. But stimulating conversation between 2 equally talented sides is both entertaining and informative… and rare.
I don’t own a television. I only watch excerpts on YouTube as necessary.
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p>It seems to me, though, as if this is a matter of taste for you. You like watching back-and-forth. I prefer depth. It would be more interesting for me to get a deeper understanding of how paleo-conservatives think than to watch the charming, knowledgeable, and well-prepared Rachel Maddow dismantle something he’s said yet again. But that’s me.
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p>But taste aside, Olberman has been relatively successful with MSNBC’s ratings. Yes, Fox often gets move viewers, but Olberman has improved their ratings in that time slot. Perhaps, after we seize the means of production and nationalize television, we can have a conservative show, a liberal show, and a conservative vs liberal show. I’m sure that will D-light you!
It would be more interesting for me to get a deeper understanding of how paleo-conservatives think than to watch the charming, knowledgeable, and well-prepared Rachel Maddow dismantle something he’s Pat Buchanan has said yet again.
I like depth sometimes too, depends on the subject. But how can you call watching their show “depth”? Just because they speak unopposed and unchallenged for their hour doesn’t mean they drop any lower in detail, it just means they spend more time bashing the Republican/Conservative of the day with more “Worst person of the day” BS. Then they bring in some more partisans who repeat the same bashing, complete with their yucks and jokes. But depth is sorely missing.
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p>Maybe they (Keith and Maddow) could hold their own against a well informed Republican but we’ll never know. And I disagree on the “format” comment. Neither of these two blowhards needs to have a “Colmes” like co-host, but merely have some guests on who disagree.
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p>Other than that they are the antipathy of Rush Limbaugh and we both agree on how BORING (yes all caps) he is. Plus, what will happen from this point forward? Will they concentrate their angst towards the Republican minority after Jan 20th?
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p>PS WHen I see her speak to Pat B, her “well prepared” schtick isn’t enough. You can study the wrong side of an issue all day but it doesn’t make you right. đŸ™‚
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p>2. I again have the same answer to you on “Bush bashing” that I had on the institutional racism exchange. Unless you have worked to a balanced view, how are you to decide what constitutes gratuitous negativity (“bashing”) and what constitutes objective analysis? Ideology, as I said elsewhere, acts as no more than a heuristic, but, in your above comment, it suffices for you.
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p>3. “Worst Person of the Day” is entertaining: that’s the point of most television. Though popular, Hannity and Colmes is still not everyone’s idea of entertainment.
Even your point of TV being “entertaining’… I watch mainly educational programs (Discovery channel, History channel…) and political shows but are these entertaining or educational… or both.
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p>If I agree with point 2 do I take the leap and say Rush Limbaugh is not bashing but is merely going deep on his objective analysis? I think it would be fair to say that Rush and Keith/Rachel have very similar shows albeit polar opposites. Fans might say Rush is entertaining as well. I have not listened to Rush in many years and it is for the same reason, no balance.
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p>The back and forth which you call fruitless is present in any fruitful discussion on most debates I’ve watched. Facts (or rumors) are presented and the other side either debates the merits or disproves the facts. I learn from listening to both sides, but here is where things become subjective.
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p>Good luck to all these talk shows and if there is an audience to support them then I guess they can claim success. Although a good question may be what does success prove? Why do so few people listen to “liberal” talk shows? I’ll stick to my guns and say this back and forth is what people want. I’ll also stick to my guns about the seeming “annoyance” liberal hosts have when someone questions their views. Even the easy going Bill Maher rarely has any “strong” Conservative guest on his show because he doesn’t want his “bashing humor” to be interrupted by facts. But then again that show is clearly entertainment vs. educational. I disdain MSNBC but I do watch Morning Joe sometimes and I believe it is because he does have the “other side” on often as regulars to keep him honest and vice versa.
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p>Simple answer: no.
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p>A cottage industry seems to have developed around Limbaugh’s looseness with facts. For example, Limbaugh claims that Democrats are trying to steal the Minnesota Senate election. He didn’t say might be stealing; he said are stealing:
That’s a question where you can weigh the evidence yourself and decide whether Limbaugh is escalating rumor into fact to “bash” Democrats or whether he is offering insightful analysis.
But I do wonder if this “looseness of facts” you attribute to Rush is very similar to the MO of both Olberman and Maddow. They engage in the same hyperbole as Rush as far as I am concerned on a nightly basis.
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p>I personally watched both of them escalate Sarah Palin news flashes from rumor into fact on quite a few occasions. They were more than eager to jump on “reports” and worry about the truth later on. Neither Rush nor these 2 are innocent of this journalistic crime you mention… I mean Olbermann and Mathews were so zealous with their hyperbole that NBC yanked them of the “anchor” position for the election coverage.
I’d be concerned if they did.
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p>I wasn’t saying that you defended Limbaugh, but I was pointing out a case where he had elevated rumor to fact in the face of contradictory evidence.
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p>I own no stock in MSNBC and “Tweetie”, as the left blogosphere used to call Matthews, has always been problematic.
… a little too self serving in his interviews. Especially latter in the show’s life. He seemed to always want to interject a viewpoint of his own that he thought was interesting and insightful. I usually found that these interjections not only didn’t add anything, but oftentimes seemed to be an attempt an an inapplicable tangent. I often found his ‘insightful interjections’ inapplicable to the subject matter at hand,… and I often saw this not only for subjects for which I was already pretty knowledgeable, but also other subjects about which I but was really just slightly familiar.
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p>Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t horrible (there are plenty that are worse). He did have excellent subjects and guests. But this tendency in his interviewing style struck me as a bit vain and off-putting. It really bugged me when he got into subject I know really well because his steering of the conversation threatened to actually create misunderstanding where there would not be if he just stopped it.