AP is reporting that Michael Powell is to step down as FCC chief today.

With the Economist commenting on his "zest for public office" (just not this particular office, apparently) is he now in line for a run at the Virginia senate seat which would be left vacant if George Allen runs for Governor in 2006?


Nice backstory on yesterday's hootenanny by Adam Nagourney in the Times this morning, about where we might go from here...

Not sure about this argument, though... I watched both CBS and ABC, and thought they did a decent job within the obvious constraints of format. I particularly liked Jim Axelrod's segment on CBS on what the day meant to two families - the Bushes and the family of a soldier killed in Iraq.

Tom Shales in the Post gets it about right when he says:

"Unfortunately, [the speech] will probably be more impressive in print than as Bush, in his usual baby-blue necktie, delivered it. [His] capabilities as an orator fluctuate from speech to speech, and this time they were at low ebb. The delivery lacked heart and soul."

As far as the content goes, the devil, as they say, will be in the detail, and how the administration will be able to square the rhetoric with its existing support for countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

As my colleague Quentin Peel writes this morning, a speech that was anxiously awaited outside the US merely showed the rest of the world that the president has a full agenda but few ideas. Quentin concludes:

"Ms Rice says things will change. She wants 'a conversation, not a monologue'. Fine words. Four years of Bush have simply proved that the US has a blinkered third-class president and an ideologically led second-class administration. An optimist would say that it cannot get any worse."

And on the subject of foreign policy, Paul Rogers' piece in OpenDemocracy about the US and Iran is well worth reading.


Finally, Whatever happened to "thanks for getting us on TV now and then"...?

Definite shades of David Icke. But this is hilarious. Just keep clicking the button that says "And on tomorrow's show..."

Four more years of this?

sheeesh.


Inauguration update: Tell me I'm dreaming. Tell me he didn't just say this:

"The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world. America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one.
From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth."

it's over.... manifest destiny, anyone?


In a not-too-dissimilar vein, the BBC has been re-showing Adam Curtis's excellent series "The Power of Nightmares" this week, looking at the connections and confluences between neo-conservatism and radical Islam.

It's well worth checking out if you get a chance.


Domestically, with Bush talking in his speech about the "ownership society" and "making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny"; my colleague Norma Cohen has a great piece in the American Prospect this month about social security and what lies in store for the US based on the British experience.


Meanwhile, the dreaded "m-word" resurfaces... (sorry that's 'mandate' not 'Mehlman').



The Jon Stewart for CBS anchor story refuses to go away... Talk is that Stewart was offered the Andy Rooney slot a while back and turned it down. Don't know how true that might be, but he's savvy enough to know that all of that "serious" stuff will come later. The important thing for now is not to dilute his appeal.

But as I've often argued, his importance to the relationship between young readers and whatever it is we understand by network news is crucial.

My friend Linda was right on the money the other day proposing that CBS can solve their ratings malaise and help the news division with a new reality show called "American Anchor".

And given that we as an audience seem to show no let-up in our need for a fix...


Nice piece by John McManus on Grade The News. Here's an excerpt:

Punditry and attitude flourish as resources for reporting grow scarcer and news providers aim at niche audiences.

There are advantages to greater diversity of news and views. But right now disadvantages seem greater. Opinion can't substitute for the information that solid reporting turns up. And the more extreme the 'tude, the less likely it is to be consumed by - much less inform or persuade - anyone who doesn't already hold the author's worldview.

Interesting story in TVGuide (yes, yes, I know that might sound like an oxymoron..) about CBS News and how the board sees its 'post-Dan' future.

Here's part of what Les Moonves is quoted as saying:

"What we're looking at is redefining the relationship with the people who are receiving the news," he said. "The Internet has changed that. I think there is a more personal connection [online], and I think we've got to do the same thing."

Uh-oh... sounds ominous. Watch for them to make a truly obscene offer to try to land this guy in a not-so-subtle effort to lower their average viewer age by twenty years.

And on the subject of CBS News, the 'transparency' of the Rathergate report seems to have backfired somewhat...


And, just to prove there really are some good guys left...

Well done, Malcolm! Thoroughly deserved.

I grew up reading the brilliant Mr Brodie's reporting in the Belfast Telegraph and the Ireland's Saturday Night. He also lives in the same street as my folks, but if truth be told, I suspect he really lives in the press box at Windsor Park.

Nice piece in The New York Times by Frank Rich about "Crossfire"'s marshmallow-toasting with Armstrong Williams (Transcript).

Here's an excerpt:

That [Mr Novak] and Mr. Begala would be allowed to lob softballs at a man who may have been a cog in illegal government wrongdoing, on a show produced by television's self-proclaimed "most trusted" news network, is bad enough. That almost no one would notice, let alone protest, is a snapshot of our cultural moment, in which hidden agendas in the presentation of "news" metastasize daily into a Kafkaesque hall of mirrors that could drive even the most earnest American into abject cynicism.

or indeed, have them reaching for their thesaurus.

"You can’t be a real country unless you have beer and an airline. It helps if you have a football team or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need beer." - Frank Zappa.

The latest issue of Time is reporting that Katie Couric has "been approached" about taking over the anchor chair at CBS News.

Would be an interesting move even if, as Time reports, CBS would have to wait over a year to get her, and would send a message of reassurance/reliability/humility/pandering not just to the audience but to the political establishment.

Meanwhile, Bush tells the Post that the election was "an accountability moment" and that his so-called mandate absolves his administration from any blame for mistakes or misjudgments ahead of the invasion of Iraq.

Oh, and he also reveals why we haven't been able to catch Bin Laden.

"Because he's hiding."

I guess a suitable interval has passed without comment to allow me to shed the ghost of my "Zero Four" election blog for the paper (which they now seem to have moved behind a subscription window, for some reason..) and resume the personal nonsense.

Might be a relatively short-lived hiatus, though...