Mickey Kaus offers a modest proposal to CNN:
Memo to the visionary Jon Klein: Several people have told me they found the recent TV confrontations between Lawrence O’Donnell and Pat Buchanan to be compelling and illuminating viewing. Here’s an idea: Why not make these confrontations a regular feature of CNN? You could have Buchanan “on the right,” and someone like O’Donnell “on the left”! To spice it up, you could let them each invite maybe one guest a night to help them defend their side. Make a whole half-hour show of it. Appointment TV! Perfectly suited to the new ideological cable environment in which nonpartisan CNN is losing out. … P.S.: I’m trying to come up with a name for this new show. Maybe “Cross Currents”? .. “Shootout”? … “Ready, Aim, Fire”? … “Fire When Ready”? … I just know there’s a good one along those lines! Help me out here.
As I wrote at the start of the month, when Tom Braden, Buchanan’s original sparring partner passed away:
Crossfire itself died in 2005, with a little assist from top media consultant Jon Stewart, and when CNN’s Jonathan Klein “announced that he could not abide the harsh and confrontational style of Tucker Carlson“, as Tim Graham wrote last month, noting that the harsh and confrontational style of Tucker Carlson was eventually replaced by the gentle, pastoral timbre of D.L. Hughley.
Would Klein feel compelled to get Stewart’s blessings on Crossfire Mark II?
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