Neil Cavuto
The Idiot Box
It was a self-inflicted, eye-glazing marathon—50 hours in late August spent watching a full sampling of the Fox News lineup. Looking back, it seems like a nine-day hallucination of strident voices, blonde hair, and more pitchmen hawking gold coins than at any time since the heyday of King Midas. Why did I volunteer for this ordeal when a rational person would have been at the beach? Not to belabor the predictable liberal lament that Fox News fails to uphold the high TV journalistic traditions of Edward R. Murrow and Eliot Spitzer.
Between speeches in Los Angeles, New York and New Orleans, Rick Perry is doing his best to keep people guessing if and when he’ll throw his (ten-gallon) hat into the GOP presidential primary. When the Texas governor appeared last Tuesday on “Your World with Neil Cavuto,” the conservative Fox News host was already gushing over the hundreds of thousands of new jobs created in Texas in the past two years. When Cavuto asked how Perry had lured Carl’s Jr. restaurants to Texas, the governor flashed a trademark smile. “They love the smell of freedom,” he explained.
Multiple Choice Mitt: Auto Bailout Edition
What did Mitt Romney think about the auto bailout? And when did he think it? After reading the transcript of Monday’s Republican debate, and following this controversy for the last few weeks, I’m still not sure how to answer those questions. And that may be because Romney is confronting a familiar problem.
Here Comes The Paul Ryan Presidential Campaign
One story I've been following but haven't written about is the possibility that Paul Ryan might decide to run for president. When you have the power to set your party's vision of government for the next fifty years, and nobody in the party is allowed to disagree with you, or even dodge paying fealty to you, then you already are the party leader. Ryan's disavowals of interest never struck me as terribly strong. Now he's dropping even stronger hints: On Thursday evening, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan said yet again that he is not considering a run for the GOP presidential nomination.
Fox’s Egypt Problem
When the protests in Egypt began last week, it did not take long for conservative pundits to sound the alarmist warning bell. Fox digital politics editor Chris Stirewalt cautioned on Special Report with Bret Baier, “If this is directed toward retrenchment of the Islamic forces, it could be difficult period for [the] Middle East.” Glenn Beck declared himself “no fan of Mubarak,” but warned, “God help [the police] if Egypt falls. God help them.” This reaction wasn’t completely predictable.
&c
-- Brad Plumer on Michael Steele's doomed re-election bid. -- The history of filibuster reform -- Neil Cavuto gets undermined by Fox's own on-screen graphic.
