i guess overall i like the new directions in "advocacy" (or just "opinion") "journalism." one signal shift on cable is the development of the explicitly ideological host: not a nominally neutral host with pundit or advocate guests, but o'reilly, beck, olbermann, ed schultz. they're not my first choice on their networks, actually, but i think the form is still developing, and could get less hectoring and doctrinaire and funnier. but the elaborate half-assed advocacy of a host of positions is a nice little prerogative of citizenship. it's always been opinion that drew me to newspapers, for example.

i might just say that my favorite actual show in this vein so far is rachel maddow; sometimes she does olbermann, but she goes slower and and has a lighter touch. glenn beck really is something, though. actually "morning joe" does this sort of thing extremely well too. matthews is one nice model: you know he's a centerish democrat more or less and sometimes he editorializes. but he doesn't just lob talking points at the left or try to make the right look ridiculous: he likes an actual argument and is into the spectacle of politics. if you caount hardball, i like that better than maddow.

on the other hand, i really wish anyone had any sense of an american political landscape that was more than left/right in whatever its current permutation might be. the culture of consultants and spokespersons is pretty much worthless. you want the unbought expression of unvarnished views. but where is the, you know, green party show? the montana militia hour? how about the ronpaulesque show? the anarchists. a straightinyourface marxist etc? the point is to make a show like that entertaining: you don't have to agree with o'reilly to dig it in small doses.

but i even like the edge of conspiracy theories, the strange affiliations, the mysterious inner motivations etc: weirdness is alright in its zone. and in glenn beck, our discourse is really lurching into the funk.