Le Comédie de Cable News

Today's Studio Briefing (posted at the IMDB has a note about Mullah Robertson's assassination comments:

On his Fox News television show Wednesday, anchor Brit Hume took rival news channel CNN to task for prominently featuring Robertson's remarks, insisting that Robertson's influence had dwindled and that "he may have no clout with the Bush administration." However, at least one blog listed 10 live guest appearances by Robertson on Fox News programs during the past 10 months, a figure that was also mentioned by MSNBC personality Keith Olbermann Wednesday night when he featured Hume as his daily "worst person in the world."

Mrs. F and I gave up our digital cable package earlier in the summer, opting for what I like to call "sharecropper" cable, where we pay $12 a month for the privilege of watching local channels/networks with good reception and adding in such channels as QVC and CSPAN (as well as Canada's CBC, which is quite good even if it isn't curling season). Some days I miss it, some days I don't. But I do miss not seeing the Olbermann show on a regular basis--he seems to have one of the clearer, more independent news voices in the medium right now. Studio Briefing also notes this idiotic self-defense by Greta "Aruba" Van Sustern:

Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren responded Wednesday to criticism of her sustained coverage of the Natalee Holloway missing-person case in Aruba, insisting that it is symptomatic of a larger "epidemic" of missing persons. (She cited no studies to substantiate her claim that the number of missing persons has grown.)

But back to Robertson's influence. True, it's not as grand as it once was--but he's not become Gilbert Gottfried yet (well, maybe in material). Byron York at National Review refutes Hume and reminds us of some of the crazy comments Robertson has previously made:

...[B]ut there is also some evidence to suggest that Robertson is not quite as marginalized a figure as conservatives would like to believe. His main forum, the television program The 700 Club, is available in nearly all of the country on the ABC Family Channel, FamilyNet, the Trinity Broadcasting Network, and some broadcast stations. According to Nielsen Media Research, The 700 Club, aired each weekday, has averaged 863,000 viewers in the last year. While that is not enough to call it a popular program, it is still a significant audience. It is, for example, more than the average primetime audience for CNN last month — 713,000 viewers — or MSNBC, which averaged 280,000 viewers in prime time. It is also greater than the viewership of CNBC and Headline News. "It's a pretty good audience," says John Green, a professor at the University of Akron who is also a fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. "He is certainly a consequential figure." But Green and others point out that, even though Robertson has a core audience of supporters, his influence — which had a high point in 1988 and 1989, when he ran for president and founded the Christian Coalition — is unquestionably on the wane. Figures like James Dobson have eclipsed Robertson in political influence, and popular evangelicals like Rick Warren and Joel Osteen have surpassed him in the religious world. "They are more in tune with contemporary culture, while Robertson was more in tune with what was happening with evangelicals 20 or 30 years ago," says Green. So these days, Robertson makes news only when he says something outrageous. And he has done that more than a few times. In early 2004, Robertson claimed divine inspiration as he predicted a Bush landslide in the presidential election. "I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election in 2004," he said on The 700 Club. "It's shaping up that way." In 2003, discussing a book critical of the State Department, Robertson said, "If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom, I think that's the answer. I mean, you get through this [book], and you say, 'We've got to blow that thing up.'" In 2001, shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Robertson nodded in agreement as fellow televangelist Jerry Falwell said the attacks were God's punishment for the sins of "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America." In 1998, Robertson warned the city of Orlando, Florida not to mark Gay Pride Month by flying flags downtown. "You're right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don't think I'd be waving those flags in God's face if I were you," Robertson said. "This is not a message of hate; this is a message of redemption. But a condition like this will bring about the destruction of your nation. It'll bring about terrorist bombs; it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor."