UPDATE: We've learned that these are from the after-party celebrating Couric's debut as anchor of the CBS Evening News. Oh, lord.

A tipster sent us these photos after finding them in a Facebook photo album called "Four Martini Mimimum" and says they were shot in 2006. We've asked CBS News for information about where, when, and why they were taken—we think it's a toss-up between wedding and bar mitzvah. Or maybe a birthday party? Whatever the event: Katie Couric, you now have a standing invitation to any Gawker Media party.

Why bother? Because the TV news portion of the White House Press Corps is an exclusive country club of identical privileged tools who've convinced themselves that arguing with a stonewalling flack for an hour a day is doing the dirty work of democracy. And insulting one of them is tantamount to censorship.

White House communications director Anita Dunn said Fox News doesn't behave "the way that legitimate news organizations behave," which is an objectively true statement, as long as your definition of "legitimate news organizations" means organizations in operation after the death of William Randolph Hearst.

This outraged Tapper!

Tapper: It's escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations "not a news organization" and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it's appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one –

(Crosstalk)

Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.

Tapper: But that's a pretty sweeping declaration that they are "not a news organization." How are they any different from, say –

Gibbs: ABC -

Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?

Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o'clock tonight. Or 5 o'clock this afternoon.

Tapper: I'm not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I'm talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a "news organization" — why is that appropriate for the White House to say?

Gibbs: That's our opinion.

First, they didn't say that Fox is "not a news organization." We just said what they said, and it's true. Eric Boehlert lays out many examples of Fox's "news" programs fucking the truth up, though really their sponsoring of, promotion of, and reporting on the fucking tea parties is all the proof you need that they don't behave anything like ABC News.

Back when Jake Tapper worked for Salon, would he have considered it a ridiculous attack to say that that online 'zine was not objective? Would've he really have quibbled with the idea that a site run by liberal journalist David Talbot might not be considered "legitimate" by a Republican president? Even if they were sending real-life good journalists like Tapper and, later, Michael Scherer to cover the White House? (Of course, no site that publishes Camille Paglia and Cary Tennis can be considered legitimate, but their terribleness transcends partisanship.)

Does Tapper understand that despite the fact that he is very good, personal friends with Major Garrett, Garrett's employer is actually a research and communications arm of the conservative movement? In a much, much, much more direct and partisan fashion than almost any liberal "equivalent" news source? Like, The Nation and Keith Olbermann and The New Republic and Air America are liberal news organizations staffed and run by liberals dedicated to achieving liberal political goals, but if they've ever all joined together to organize a partisan campaign as PR-savvy as the Tea Parties (or the Iraq War) while still maintaining poses of objectivity, we've missed in next to the thousands of op-eds and Special Comments on how Obama is continuing Bush's torture regime and Senate Democrats are spineless cowards.

But now, once again, Jake Tapper is a hero to the right-wing blogs. Because he knows that it is the objective reporters job to always object, to everything. If the President says the ocean is quite large, it is heroic reporting to demand that his spokesman acknowledge that outer space is even bigger.

See, the Obama administration just called out Fox as "an opponent" instead of a "legitimate news organization." But Ailes and Axelrod had coffee last week! What's up?

If the Obama White House treats Fox News as the research and propaganda arm of the opposition, Brian Stelter and the Times treat the cable channel more like a foreign nation that the current administration doesn't officially recognize. With Roger Ailes as Foreign Minister and flacks acting as diplomats, Fox and MSNBC work toward detente, the Obama administration refuses to normalize relations without a reduction in arms, the network seeks high-profile defections from John Stossel and Lou Dobbs, and there are rumors of secret treaties between O'Reilly and Olbermann.

As always, Fox pretends to be a regular news station that broadcasts actual news, but, amusingly, they admit to keeping to that high standard only when the unemployed are watching:

Fox argues that its news hours - 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. on weekdays - are objective. The channel has taken pains recently to highlight its news programs, including the two hours led by Shepard Smith, its chief news anchor. And its daytime newscasts draw more viewers than CNN or MSNBC's prime-time programs.

Yes, they are at pains to point out that they have one fantastic, independent, entertaining news anchor, who adheres to a reality-based interpretation of events. And besides: isn't nine hours of truth a day enough for you monsters?

There is a degree to which the entire "war" is mutually beneficial, with both sides firing up the base. But we imagine the Obama White House has also been surprised by the depths of Fox's irresponsibility (witch-hunting, actively organizing and promoting protests of the president's legitimacy, everything Glenn Beck does and says). It's within their power to rein in O'Reilly with flattery, but there's obviously nothing to be done about the rest of Fox's non-"news hours" personalities. They're a bunch of Ahmadinejads.

We reported a little over a month ago that the Today show had booked Blagojevich to appear on the morning he happened to be arrested by the FBI, but bumped the interview so they could flack for Jay Leno's new show. We found that out through a Freedom of Information Act request to the state of Illinois asking for e-mails from representatives of the media to Lucio Guerrero, Blagojevich's press secretary (we got the idea from South Carolina's The State, which did the same thing—to comic effect—after Mark Sanford's Argentinian Rhapsody).

The first raft of e-mails we got were from December 8, the day before Blagojevich got popped, and it included one from Today producer Lexi Dauber apologetically canceling a scheduled remote Q-and-A with Matt Lauer to make room for Leno news. We just got another batch covering the 48 hours after the arrest, and guess what? Dauber and her fellow Today producer Stephanie Siegel all of a sudden really wanted to talk to Blagojevich!

The traditional route for a reporter desperately trying to convince someone to submit to an interview when it's obviously not in their interest to do so is to drop all pretense of toughness and objectivity and lie to them: We will be your friend! Not like all those other mean reporters. While Dauber and Seigel's e-mails to Guerrero are understandably sympathetic, an internal write-up of a phone call with Siegel outlining the terms of her interview request shows what they were really willing to give up. Matt Lauer or Meredith Vieira would call Blagojevich before the interview to "go over the line of questions," and Seigel stressed that "they are sensitive."

CBS's Early Show also went the simpering route, telling Guerrero that there is "far too much hearsay going around" and offering Blagojevich an opportunity to "set the record straight" and "clear his own name." They were even willing to "rent a private space to keep him away from the rest of the media's view." We all know how annoying prying reporters can be.

ABC News' Diane Sawyer, on the other hand, didn't try to buddy up to Blago. To her credit, Sawyer's producer offered a fairly straightforward pitch that managed to avoid over-the-top sycophancy.

Larry King's producer relied on the rogue's gallery that has traipsed through King's studio in the past, positioning the host as the go-to guy for crooks, liars, and other humiliated figures—go with us and you can be in the fine company of Jeffrey Skilling, Gary Condit, and Bob Packwood!

King's CNN colleague Anderson Cooper wasn't even trying: His producers sent in a perfunctory, We-asked-Governor-Blagojevich-to-come-on-the-show requests that they knew weren't going to open any doors.

Likewise the producer for CNN's Campbell Brown dashed off an email that would allow her to dutifully report that a request was in.

Sometimes brevity is your best bet when dealing with a harried flack who's clearly deluged with requests. That's what Andy Shaw, a political reporter for Chicago's local ABC station, decided to go with.

That kind of approach is important when you know your target is dealing with all manner of zany proposals. Like a request for comment from "a representative for Dan Ackroyd [sic] and Jim Belushi" on their call for Blagojevich's resignation. When a press aide forwarded that message to the governor's press assistant, she responded, "What? I want you to explain."

(For the record, it looks like that was a hoax call—we can't find any evidence that one-half of the Blues Brothers and the talentless brother of the other, dead, half ever made such a demand.)

The most pathetic request comes from Pat Curry, the news assignment editor for WGN, a local Chicago station. He wasn't even asking for an interview with Blagojevich—he wanted Guerrero himself to come on, and delivered a masterwork of flattery and faux sympathy. "I wouldn't expect you to be able to comment on a federal investigation, and could easily brush that off," Curry wrote, signing off with, "Humbly, Pat Curry."

A producer for a local Chicago talk radio show hosted by husband-and-wife pair Don and Roma Wade wins the award for discretion, declining to put in writing the "incredible offer" he had for Guerrero.

We'll never know what that offer was, but guess who got the first post-arrest interview with disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich?

You can read the whole batch here. Interestingly, not one e-mail from Fox News turned up. It could be that they relied solely on the phone, or that their e-mails somehow got missed by our FOIA requests. Or maybe they figured it wasn't worth trying.

Matt Drudge broke the story: Charlie Gibson will retire as anchor of World News Tonight in January, at which point Sawyer, who has been co-anchor of Good Morning America since 1999, will take over.

Sawyer has long complained that she was tiring of the morning routine, and her tenure at GMA has been an open question for years. And Gibson, who was shabbily passed over in the wake of Peter Jennings' death from lung cancer and only got the gig because Bob Woodruff was injured in Iraq and Elizabeth Vargas got pregnant—a point he managed to make in his farewell memo, below—only hung around to gain the satisfaction of showing his bosses that the old horse still had some fight in him. So it's not terribly surprising that he would leave and Sawyer would take his slot. Still, it's a colossally stupid move. Or, as one TV insider put it to us: "It's the dumbest fucking idea in the long, hoary history of dumb fucking ideas in the news business."

Morning news is a growth business, and second-place GMA has been keeping Today on its toes for years. Sawyer is an integral part of a profitable, growing show, and ABC News has decided to upset the apple cart—putting GMA's success at risk and providing and opening to CBS to finally get in the game—so it can put her to work on an evening broadcast that nobody watches anymore outside of retirement homes. It's like trading a successful ballplayer down to the minor leagues.

Look how well it worked for Katie Couric: She gave up a successful morning franchise for the CBS Evening News, which has racked up little more than all-time audience lows since she took over. When CBS boss Les Moonves was engineering Couric's defection back in 2006, we asked him this question: If you could have Today's numbers at the CBS Early Show, or the NBC Nightly News' numbers at the CBS Evening News, which would you pick? He answered the only way a rational TV executive would: He'd pick the Early Show. Then why, we asked, are you devoting all your resources to resurrecting the Evening News? "Prestige," he answered. For some reason, these old people think a nightly newscast that grabs the biggest share of a dwindling and dying audience is something worth banging your dick on the table about.

Sawyer is apparently thinking along the same lines—she wants the Big Chair, even if it's not what it used to be. It'll be nice to have ladies helming two out of the three newscasts, and maybe Sawyer will be able to keep up the heated race with Brian Williams for the top slot that Gibson started. But to what end? So ABC News can lose ground on GMA, the show that actually brings in significant profits?

Here is David Westin's e-mail to ABC News staff, and below that is Gibson's note to World News Tonight staffers:

Today, Charlie Gibson announced to his colleagues at World News that he has decided to step down as anchor effective at the end of this year. I attach below Charlie's full email.

I have asked Diane Sawyer to serve as the next anchor of World News, and she will assume that position in January.

Charlie and I have been talking about his decision for several weeks, and he has persuaded me that this is both what he wants and what is best for him. I respect his decision, just as I respect the enormous contribution he has made to ABC News through the years. Most recently, he stepped in to lead World News after a difficult and turbulent time – both for the broadcast and for ABC News over all. We suffered from the loss of Peter and then the severe injuries to Bob. Charlie came to the fore to keep us on the path of doing the first rate journalism that had distinguished World News for many years. We owe him much for the leadership he gave us when we needed it most.

Since then, Charlie has covered all the major events with the substance and grace that we all expect from him. Most importantly, he headed our coverage during a presidential election unlike any other. Now, having accomplished so much in so many different parts of ABC News, Charlie has decided it is time for him to step down. I have told him that he has an open door to continue to work with ABC News, but he's asked for a bit of time before he comes back to us.

Diane Sawyer is the right person to succeed Charlie and build on what he has accomplished. She has an outstanding and varied career in television journalism, beginning with her role as a State Department correspondent and continuing at 60 Minutes, Primetime Live, and Good Morning America. She has interviewed every President since President George H. W. Bush up to and including President Obama. She has handled an array of breaking news special events, including on 9/11 and, most recently, the presidential election. She has done distinguished documentaries on topics as varied as North Korea, the plight of women in Afghanistan and in prisons here at home, and poverty in Camden, New Jersey, and in Appalachia. We are fortunate to have a journalist of Diane's proven ability and passion to step into the important position of anchor for World News. She will continue with her documentaries in her new role.

Diane's presence will certainly be missed on Good Morning America. But we are fortunate that both Charlie and Diane will remain with their current broadcasts for the next four months; we will be making further announcements well before any changes are made.

Charlie Gibson's e-mail to World News Tonight staff:

I have always been taught you should never bury the lead – so I write to tell you that I have told David Westin I want to step down as anchor of World News, and retire from full time employment at ABC News.

It has not been an easy decision to make. This has been my professional home for almost 35 years. And I love this news department, and all who work in it, to the depths of my soul.

I have received much comment, and quite a few emails and letters referring to the signoff Eddie Pinder convinced me to use - wishing that everyone has had a good day. But the proudest part for me has been saying "...for all of us at ABC News...", since those words signify in my mind that I have been in a position to speak for an entire news department that I consider second to none.

It had been my intention to step down from my job at Good Morning America in 2007 but with Peter's illness, Bob's injuries, and Elizabeth's pregnancy, the job at World News came open in May of 2006, and David asked me to step in as anchor. It was an honor to do so. The program is now operating at a very accelerated, but steady, cruising speed, and I think it is an opportune time for a transition – both for the broadcast and for me. Life is dynamic; it is not static.

I have told David I would like to continue in some capacity contributing occasionally to ABC News. He has been receptive to the idea – and we will be discussing what that role might be.

Most importantly, my heart is full of gratitude for those with whom I have had the privilege to work as a correspondent, as a host at Good Morning America, at Special Events, and now as anchor at World News.

I'll be anchoring World News through December and will have a chance to thank many of you personally. In the meantime let's get back to the news...

"We've got an HD surprise coming soon," Shep promises. "But it's a surprise, so I can't talk about it. But it's coming." We don't even have HD and we are still excited. Is it a car chase?

August is so dead it's not even suitable for ginning up a war, as former White House chief of staff Andy Card famously noted. Everything's in reruns, and without even an Olympics to distract us in an odd-numbered year, the most specious, pointless, specious stories expand to fill the empty afternoons and turn into cable-news wallpaper. Only in August could the preposterous notion of "Obama's death panels" get a full week to be chewed over, analyzed, rebutted, and generally taken seriously. Absent a dead white girl, we can look forward to at least two more weeks of faux-stories and false outrage as desperate cable-news producers cast about to find something for their fill-in talking-heads to scream about.

We decided to revisit some stories from Augusts past, using the Drudge Report Archives as our guide, to remind ourselves that it was ever thus and always will be. August is the time when the nuts come out to play.

2008: Well, Russia had just invaded Georgia, and the presidential campaigns were largely quiet leading up to their conventions at the end of the month. But it was on the Ides of August that we learned that bigfoot had been found:

Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, a pair of Bigfoot-hunting hobbyists from north Georgia, say they found the creature's body in a wooded area and spotted several similar creatures that were still alive.

2007: Drudge saw fit to link to, and Fox News saw fit to actually run a story about, a South Carolina prison inmate who filed a handwritten lawsuit against Michael Vick for $63 billion, claiming that Vick stole his pit bulls, sold them on eBay, and used the money to buy missiles to give to Iran because Vick had "pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda in February of this year."

"Michael Vick has to stop physically hurting my feelings and dashing my hopes," Riches writes in the complaint.

2006: It was actually an uncharacteristically newsy month, and the lamest story we could find that Drudge linked to on the Ides of that month was about woolly mammoth sperm:

BODIES of extinct Ice Age mammals, such as woolly mammoths, that have been frozen in permafrost for thousands of years may contain viable sperm that could be used to bring them back from the dead, scientists said yesterday.

2005: We learned that you could grow meat in a test tube, a story that crops up every few years (here's the same story last year) and proves to go no where, but which was wacky enough to entertain Drudge readers for a minute or two:

Once the cells have grown enough, they could be scraped off and packaged. If edible sheets or beads are used, all of it could be eaten.

2004: the Ides fell on a weekend, so the nearest weekday gave us this twofer of perennial Drudge favorites: Weird crime and robots. The links are sadly dead.

2003: We learned on August 15 that Judge Roy Moore's Ten Commandments, which were illegally placed in a state judicial building, were not going anywhere, g-dammit:

"I have no intention of removing the monument," he said at a press conference in Montgomery. "This I cannot and will not do."

The tradition goes back ages. It was on August 15, 1912, that the New York Times published this letter, which can imagine even as we write flashing across Sean Hannity's teleprompter tonight:

We can't wait for our vacation.

[Photo via Flickr by Chaval Brasil.]

Broadcasting & Cable's Marisa Guthrie surveys the market for on-air experts to talk about stuff on cable news and and morning shows, and finds that, like everything else, it has collapsed:

There was a time, not long ago, when on-air contributors with expertise on a particular topic would command lucrative contracts from networks, sometimes earning as much as $5,000 for one appearance on a network morning show. But the financial contraction has choked off many of these deals. Now, networks pony up very little or, in most cases, nothing at all for talking heads.

According to Guthrie, some analyst contracts used to range into the six figures or higher for a few dozen appearances per year. So what happened when the networks reined in those outrageously cushy deals?

One agent recalls a multi-year deal worth nearly $250,000 for a medical expert. When the deal expired, according to the agent, the network suggested a strikingly different arrangement: The client could continue to appear-without getting paid.

There are of course innumerable people willing to go on TV for free, which places something of a drag on wages for those who would like to be paid. Guthrie cites Rosalind Wiseman, a child-care "expert" who's happily made the rounds at Today, Good Morning America, The Early Show, and CNN without earning a cent. As one agent told the paper, "Anyone can talk about anything. But if someone has perspective or access to specific information that the network can't get anywhere else, the network is probably more flexible." So basically you can be on TV if you want to just talk. If you actually know something worth talking about, you might get paid. But when was the last time you saw anyone on TV who knew something worth talking about?

Costello has done a thing or two to tarnish his own reputation in his later years—his Sundance Channel chat show is pretty embarrassing. And that stupid hat! But the spectacle of seeing a Gingrichite ex-congressman who once represented the murderer of an abortion doctor playing "Mystery Dance" and actually crossing his legs mid-song has killed rock'n'roll again, for the thousandth time. It's like when we found out that George W. Bush likes Alejandro Escovedo.

NBC owns ten stations across the country, and each has its own crew of people to produce promo spots. But a tipster writes:

Starting September 18th the layoffs will begin, and go through all the NBC stations, with a new group being dropped every two weeks. All marketing departments will be gone well before the end of the year. Logs, bag & tag, and all promo activities will be hubbed through a boutique agency in New York. News staffers will take over creation of all topical promotion in prime, and any promotion that requires onsite footage.

Blogger Well Dunne caught wind of the layoffs at NBC's Dallas station, and has also heard that they will be repeated nationwide. And a TV news insider told us he had heard of imminent layoffs at WNBC's creative services department in New York. We called NBC for confirmation, and they released this statement:

We're making some strategic changes to our Creative Services function, creating a new kind of marketing approach that better reflects the demands of today's local media marketplace. In the new organization, creative services executives at each station will determine their local market branding campaigns and promotion strategies, working closely with a newly formed media and planning strategy group, a division-wide sales marketing team, and an award winning outside creative agency.

An NBC executive declined to say how many will be laid off, and said that creative services executives will remain at each station. News employees will be expected to produce promos for their own stories, meaning that in addition to serving NBC News' newsgathering function, they will also be required to flack for their stations and essentially work in marketing for NBC Universal.

Yes, it's famous stand-up comedian and sit-down demagogue Glenn Beck, of Glenn Beck's Kavalkade of Komedy, Krying, and Kommunism, performing all of his world-famous funny voices. Like a 21st century Jackie Gleason, a generation has grown up on Glenn's beloved characters.

And the gang's all here! Annoying wife speaking gibberish, Snagglepuss, Kermit the Economist Frog, Casey Kasem, sarcastic Hippie guy pretending to cure cancer (??), Rush Limbaugh (??), Hans and Franz (??), yodeling Hawaiian superhero, Fish Yoda (a personal favorite of ours), opera singer in old Warner Brothers cartoon, drunk guy in old movie, Gollum, whiny teenager, Scooby Doo, dolphin caught in plastic, and, of course, angry dude shouting about something.

Please, enjoy.

[Thanks to video intern Krutika Mallikarjuna for putting this together.]

It's about "journalists" and prosecutors and Navy SEALS tracking down "war criminals" and bringing them to justice. Like this professor of French at Goucher College, Leopold Munyakazi, who either personally participated in the Rwandan genocide or had nothing to do with it beyond upsetting the current repressive Rwandan government. See, that's the problem, it's not clear which one of those is the case.

A "journalist"—even a TV "journalist!—might try to shed light on the matter and figure out, to the best of his investigative ability, what the truth about the situation actually is. Charlie went in with a camera crew and a Rwandan prosecutor and got Munyakazi arrested, and now he faces possible deportation and a maybe-politically motivated prosecution back in Rwanda that will probably lead to life in prison for something he might not have had anything to with.

But, you know, Charlie has no time for this "shades of gray" bullshit. That's why his new show is a favorite of red-blooded conservative bloggers!

"How often is it that one hour of TV viewing can annoy terrorists, The New York Times, and Human Rights Watch?" Mary Katharine Ham of The Weekly Standard wrote on Monday.

Pretty often, actually! E's Wild On probably fits the bill.

Unfortunately, the show's premiere was not watched by anyone, and even fewer people watched episode two, and now they will not air any more of it. But at least they brought Munyakazi to what is either justice or a ridiculous miscarriage of same!

Here's a classic little detail from one of those profiles that basically tells you lots of things you already knew, like "Shep Smith is from the South and right-wing bloggers don't like him," but throws in a couple fun new anecdotes to keep you reading them:

Smith does spout strong opinions throughout the day, but they tend to be directed at LSU - the rival of his alma mater, Ole Miss - or at the Red Sox, eternal foes of his beloved New York Yankees. Trash talk comes with the territory; in the main newsroom at Fox News's Sixth Avenue headquarters, a fan on his desk bears the brand name "Boston," and underneath it, Smith has scrawled the word "Sucks."

Hah. This is from a profile in The Boston Globe, too.

So, yes, the "Czars" are officials in charge of managing and organizing the executive branch's efforts on certain issues, like drugs, the auto industry, energy, and so on. They all have actual official titles—"Energy Czar" Carol Browner is "Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change" and Gil Kerlikowske is the "Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy" and so on—and in fact one of the very few things all of these people have in common is that the media has decided to call all of them "Czars."

And also you should be terrified of all of the Czars, because they are unAmerican. Specifically they are Russian, and did you notice how we nationalized the car industry and then appointed a Czar to run it, which is what the communists did, according to Neil Cavuto?

(Thanks to intern Amber van Natten for meticulously putting together this video!)

When the Mark Sanford press conference began, we turned on Fox, hoping against the odds that maybe Shep Smith had started an hour early today. Instead we got... commercials? They did eventually cut to the conference, already in progress, but right in the middle—right before the wife-cheating bit was finally, explicitly admitted to!—the screen went blank for a moment, and Martha MacCallum looked baffled.

They did cut back to Sanford, after a minute. (Not shown: when, post-conference, a sad-looking MacCallum praised Sanford because he "didn't want to take TARP money for his state." Maybe because South Carolina isn't a bank?)

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.It was a fine moment for unprofessionalism at all the networks, though! At CNN, Kyra Phillips was "pretty biased in all of this," and really had nothing else to say to Candy Crowley, who just waited for some sort of question she could answer.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.And on MSNBC, meanwhile, a South Carolina politician attempted to give an interview outside the statehouse, but a guy just kept screaming, the whole time. This is maybe the funniest clip? The man is just shouting HELP! HELP! SOMEBODY HELP! And the interviewee is all just ignore him, please.

Shep's insistence on being entertaining, even when taking umbrage, make him perfect for Fox. It's only his equally strong insistence on, you know, reporting actual facts and not allowing bullshit to go unremarked on that makes people think he is a secret liberal infiltrator. Who knows (or cares!) what his personal He is a newsman!

But Fox viewers—specifically the subset of Fox viewers who spew torrents of death threats and hate mail to anyone Bill O'Reilly calls names—do not like Shep, because he calls them crazy. They are crazy, of course, but they don't want to hear this from a guy on the only network that truly understands what it is to be crazy. What a weird sensation it must be, to have your craziness coddled and encouraged by Glenn Beck and then to be told you are an unbalanced lunatic by this Shep character on the same channel.

So the Times asked Shep to explain this weird contradiction. And he is polite. Because he is southern!

He said he was trying to counter "an ideological base" that argues: "The president is illegitimate. The country is off the rails. It's been hijacked."

Some of those points seem consistent with the message delivered nightly by Mr. Beck. Mr. Smith said he had a warm relationship with Mr. Beck. "He's about the nicest guy in the building," he said.

Anyway, yes, he gets this hate mail. But his ratings are good and he gets very nice press from people like us so his job is in no danger, even though the wingnuts are all pissed at him. Because Fox is primarily about entertainment and secondarily about destroying the discourse, and Shep is very entertaining, as the above clip, from earlier this month, illustrates!