Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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TV Tales

Rich Galen

Wednesday August 03, 2005

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I ran into Greta Van Susteren last week the day after she scored nearly 3 MILLION people watching her show on Fox. I congratulated her and mentioned the fact that MSNBC's Tucker Carlson, that same night, had drawn about 178,000 viewers, six percent of Greta's numbers.

Greta is a very nice person and said how much she liked Tucker and all that. Within about 48 hours MSNBC decided they had had enough of old Tuck and announced with great fanfare that they were moving him out of the 9:00 pm Eastern time slot to a great new time slot at 11 pm Eastern.

The MSNBC programming geniuses are giving former Fox reporter Rita Cosby a new show which will fill the 9 pm slot saying, with Tucker, they would now have the only live programming on cable at 11 pm.

Carlson was quoted as saying he had always wanted to be on at 11 pm and this was just the swellest possible development, avoiding the obvious question: If so, why didn't they just put the show there in the first place?

Pop Quiz for MSNBC: Which of the following is called "Prime Time?"

A. 9:00 PM
B. 11:00 PM
C. Saturday Afternoon
D. August
E. Pluto

According to Variety, "After the switch, Carlson will have the opportunity to compete against 'The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.' Stewart and Carlson famously sparred on CNN's 'Crossfire' [last] fall." The Washington Post reports that Stewart's show has been averaging 1.4 million viewers per show so far this year.

Remember the promo MSNBC used to introduce the Tucker Carlson show? "So fast it's changing the pace of news!"

The show lasted 40 days in its time slot. That is fast.

Speaking of "Crossfire," CNN, you may remember, moved "Crossfire" from its regular early-evening slot to 4:30 in the afternoon before canceling it altogether a couple of months ago.

They have transformed that half hour to a segment called "The Strategists" during which people like me are supposed to chat with people like Donna Brazile (as I did on Monday afternoon) and talk about political events as we would if we were sitting in the Green Room as professionals, not in food fight mode as became the norm on "Crossfire."

I suggested they call it "The Green Room" and actually shoot it in the Green Room but they would rather have us sit next to each other on the news set, at a table, across from the host.

Anyway, on Monday Ms. Brazile (whom I greatly enjoy and admire) and I were talking about the recess appointment of John Bolton to be Ambassador to the United Nations.

I pointed out that in spite of the expected hand-wringing-while-feigning-shock-and-surprise by Democrats and their allies in the popular press, President Clinton made 140 recess appointments in his eight years including two Ambassadors and a Secretary of Commerce.

Not only that, but I repeated a lesson - one of many - taught to me by Mullpal and Baghdad office-mate Don Hamilton, a retired senior Foreign Service Officer (FSO).

If you were the Foreign Minister of Upper Iguana - who would you rather have as US Ambassador: The FSO whose best friend might be the person running the Iguanan Regional Desk at State? Or the political guy who can get the President of the United States on the phone if necessary?

The point here is, it will not be lost on Kofi Annan or anyone else at the UN that President Bush went out on a limb to appoint Bolton in this manner and so there will be no doubt that Bolton will be speaking on behalf of the President and US foreign policy.

The last thing we talked about was the new Al Gore cable network which opened for business Monday. In response to a question about how I thought Gore would do, I said - this is true - "Two words: Tucker Carlson."

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to a bio of Greta Van Susteren and the Variety coverage of the Tucker Carlson fiasco; an existential Mullfoto and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

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