Maine TV GM Decrees Global Warming Doesn't Exist

Michael Palmer Turns A Deaf Ear To An Inconvenient Truth
Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that in Maine, a state with two seasons -- July and winter -- you'd find a skeptic or two when it came to global warming.
Still, it's troubling when that skepticism turns to intolerance, especially when it comes from the general manager of two TV stations, as The New York Times reports.
Michael Palmer, who runs the ABC and Fox affiliates in Bangor, decreed that no global-warming stories will heat up the airwaves he oversees, likening hype over global warming to scares over killer bees and Y2K.
As for all the incontrovertible evidence? Feh. Science, schmience. Don't need any of that hooey Down East. Guess until he can put out the garbage in February without pulling on a parka, we'll
have to hear about global warming from every other news outlet in Maine.
Thanks, Mike, for taking on the experts. Oh, and call your office. The Luddites would like you to fill out the membership application that's been sitting on your desk.

Implosion Alert: Newspaper Circulation Continues To Tumble While Good Ideas On How To Stop The Slide Are Hard To Come By

Like Finding Yourself Careering Down A Black-Diamond Trail With One Ski
To no one's surprise, just about every major metro newspaper took another body blow with release of the latest FAS-FAX circulation numbers.
The one exception: The New York Post, which for the first time is selling more copies than The Daily News, though that rather Phyrric victory comes only because it sells for a quarter in the city compared to a half-buck for the News, and Rupert Murdoch is content to underwrite losses that may run north of $40 million a year.
Still a win's a win, no matter how expensive.
You have to think that folks at such places as The Los Angeles Times (down 8 percent), Boston Globe (down 6.7 percent) and Philadelphia Inquirer (down 7.5 percent) would have liked to have any good news, regardless of its price tag right about now.
Consider their plight, despite remaining profitable albeit less so in years past. The Times is likely facing more Tribune-mandated trims, with or without Dean Baquet at the helm.
The Globe just extracted a contract from The Newspaper Guild, which largely ties pay increases to revenue.
Meanwhile, staff at the Inky and its sibling The Philadelphia Daily News took a strike vote when new owner Brian Tierney said he needs cuts and fast because cash flow fell far short of what he expected and those darn bankers want their notes paid on time.
Which is why these and other papers need publishers with a clue. The natural tempation would be to slash and burn their way out of this morass. Lower overhead might be nice, but that's often accompanied by a diminished editorial product, giving more people than ever less of a reason to pick up the paper.
Pretty soon the papers will need a tourniquet instead of a Band-Aid. But eventually they'll be no one left to stop the bleeding.

Testicle Mania! Comedy Central's Ballsy Approach To Broadband Programming

"Baxter & McGuire" Allows The Family Jewels To Shine
Comedy Central will unveil next month a show about two buddies. Did we mention that they're also testicles?
Uh, yeah. Not a misprint.
"Baxter & McGuire" is among the network's forays into original broadband programming. Suffice to say, it's one that's not ready for prime time, or even late-night fringe, for that matter, when Comedy Central sometimes goes uncut on weekends. Rare is the media buyer who'd have the balls to put his client on a show like this.
The two three-minute segments I watched are moderately amusing, even if they might hit a little close to home for some guys. To wit: one segment has our heroes turning blue during an episode of coitus interruptus. To the extent that can be funny, it is.

Swift Justice For New York Times Icon David Rosenbaum

Second Of His Two Killers Convicted Of Murder In Swift Move Through Justice System
This is how stupid Percy Jordan is. First, he's arrested for murdering New York Times reporter David Rosenbaum.
After an accomplice, his cousin Michael Hamlin, pleads guilty to second-degree murder, Jordan could have copped to that plea and maybe stand a chance of getting out of prison before he died. That's unlikely to happen now.
Jordan inexplicably decided to take his chances at trial, and was convicted of first-degree murder with a minimum sentence of 30 years to life, despite overwhelming evidence against him, not to mention Hamlin's testimony.
Good riddance.
Beyond losing a journalist who had contributed so much to his peers better understanding the inner workings of the government and who had so much left to offer, the tragedy of his death is compounded by the fact that he could have been saved.
But a misdiagnosis at the hospital -- Rosenbaum's traumatic blow to the head from Jordan striking him with a pipe was mistaken for intoxication -- and an indifferent and incompetent response from paramedics helped seal his fate.
That's led to a lot of reforms and soul-searching in D.C. over how to properly respond to emergency calls. Sadly, that will also be part of Rosenbaum's remarkable legacy.

New York Times Copy Editors Want You To Know They Rocked On The SAT Verbal Section

Using Three-Dollar College Words For Fun and Profit, and Wrongly at That
A front-page story in yesterday's New York Times reported on the latest politicial sex scandal Israeli style.
Juicy stuff. Too bad the lead was written in a way few but the most erudite and those cramming for a spelling bee could know. In other words, in a way totally opposite to how you're supposed to write a newspaper article, even one in the Times.
The first paragraph of the story by Dina Kraft, headined "Israel Warriors Find Machismo Is Way Of Past" starts off:

For decades it was widely accepted that some of Israel’s top military officers and government ministers considered sexual encounters with female employees a seigneurial right.

Come again?
To save you a trip to the dictionary, seigneurial is an adjective pertaining to a seignior, another word for a lord, especially a feudal lord.
Oy!
True, the Israeli military had its share of macho leaders who may have viewed it as part of their portfolio to drop their pants with any comely teenage secretary in their midst in order to cement their Zionist credentials.
Israeli women studies professor Avigail Moor notes in the article that: "Young women serving in these high-status platoons were almost led to believe that it was something that spoke highly of them if they were chosen to be a sexual partner of a high commanding officer.”
But hardly to the level of a lord being serviced by his vassals.
And even if that was true, a word like seigneurial doesn't belong on the front page of a newspaper. Copy editors at the Times often forget that the paper's mission is to inform readers, not to show off how smart they are.

One Step Forward, Three Steps Back At NBC News As Jeff Zucker & Co. Slash Away At The Peacock

If you're a fan of hard news, you had to be cheered recently when NBC opened up a Beirut bureau around the time when Israel and Hezbollah squared off.
Then came word last week that the network was opening -- actually reopening -- a bureau in Bangkok, to supplement its efforts in Asia.
Since the broadcast networks foreign efforts had become rather dessicated over the last two decades, this was a most welcome reversal of fortune.
We'll see how long it lasts, after NBC big cheese Jeff Zucker (above) announced the network was cutting 700 jobs company-wide, including its 11 news divisions.
The cuts are no surprise to NBC insiders, who just have to look at the ratings numbers to know something would eventually be up.
While the Hollywood Reporter says Telemundo and NBC News Channel will be among those hardest hit, no show will be immune, if layoffs at other networks are a guide. And that includes on-air talent, according to the AP.
Fasten your seatbelts.

Read NBC's official announcement here:

Payback Time: Philadelphia Newspapers Owner Brian Tierney Rears His Ugly Head

"Remember that guy who said he was about to start the next great era in journalism? He was full of shit.”
You knew it would happen. Local rich guy swoops in to buy his city's newspapers and promises big things. Only thing: Rich guy paid a lot of money and there's that little matter of the $350 million in debt he rang up in the process.
So, to no one's surprise, he's rattling union cages, threatening layoffs, pension freezes and other calamities.
Such is the situation faced by the staffs at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, the Philadelphia Weekly reports.
It's good to be the king, but Tierney somehow forgot he has to make the monthly installments on his crown. Right now, he thinks his serfs should help pick up the tab. Grab those pitchforks now.
Yet another reason why employees at The Los Angeles Times should stop pining for one of the billionaires who's been sniffing around the property to become their savior. They won't. They can't. Newspapers are a business, not vanity projects. You become a valuable public commodity only after you break even -- and pay off the bankers.

In Praise Of "The Voice" --- More Tributes To Christopher Glenn

Many people who work at CBS News Radio tend to stay a good long while (though I managed all of 7 1/2 years), which is why so many there acutely feel the loss of Christopher Glenn.
Many of them arrived early in their careers to listen and learn from a man who long ago was already cementing his legend.
My friends Steve Kathan and Paul Farry have tributes to Chris today at CBSNews.com. Steve is filling in this week as the anchor of the "World News Roundup," the signature radio broadcast at CBS, which Chris anchored at the time of his retirement in February, and which Paul produces.
It's a show that often leaves its competition in the dust come radio awards time. Just two days ago, Paul picked up an Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio-Television News Directors Association on behalf of the show, whose authority and legacy will be forever burnished by the booming bass of a voice that was Chris' calling card.
Also weighing in with his usual eloquence is my buddy Greg Kandra, a writer for Katie Couric, who also spent time in the radio newsroom working with Chris.
"He had a voice that mingled cognac and cigarette smoke -- he was an inveterate, ceaseless smoker -- and both Chris and that famous voice seemed ageless."

Going Gently Into The Good Night With Christopher Glenn

One Of Radio's Great Voices Has Been Stilled
Beyond the sadness over the unexpected passing of Christopher Glenn at age 68, I was surprised to hear he had died of liver cancer. Same would go for anyone who worked with him at CBS.
For Chris loved his cigarettes, which he would puff away prodigiously in Studio 3 of the CBS Broadcast Center -- when that was still allowed -- while doing "The World Tonight." Sometimes, he might even take a drag before telling his listeners about the latest warning about smoking from the Surgeon General.
Later, when smoking was verboten inside the building, Chris would waste no time scurrying outside for a nicotine fix. At least you knew where to find him.
Beyond the cigarettes, though, you always knew you were working with a special talent, as I noted when word of his retirement was announced in January. For those of us who had spent our careers at CBS working with him, not to mention having grown up hearing him on one of the 5,000+ "In The News" segments he did, it was hard to imagine a broadcast day without him.
But on Feb. 23, he called it a career, and was happy in retirement, by all accounts.
A shame that his induction into the Radio Hall of Fame in less than three weeks will be posthumous. Then again, he was modest about his immense talent, more abashed than anything else about the tributes heaped upon him when he left the air.
Now it's time to sit back and remember. Better yet, sit back and listen.
You may not have known Chris Glenn, but if you hear some of his work, you'll know a lot.

P.S. Kudos to Brian Williams for a nice tribute to Chris on "NBC Nightly News."

Gerry Studds Makes His Mark In The New York Times By Dying

What may have been a first in The New York Times, or any other MSM publication, occurred over the weekend in the obit for Gerry Studds, the first openly gay Congressman. The paper attributed word of his death to Studds' "husband."
Not "companion." Not "lover." Not "life mate."
Instead, we got husband, which, of course, is accurate given that Studds lived in Massachusetts, where two men can live in wedded bliss.
The AP, whose obit was used by the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, also referred to Dean Hara as husband, as did the Boston Globe, but not the Washington Post, which instead used the phrase "who married Mr. Studds in 2004 shortly after same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts" when referring to Hara.
The Philadelphia Inquirer, a usually-more-enlightened paper, also couldn't bring itself to call Hara a "husband," rewriting the AP obit to use the "who married Mr. Studds shortly after same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts in 2004" terminology.
In the news business, they're called "weasel words."
For those newspapers' gay readers and employees, they're probably calling them lame.

Steve Lyons Scapegoated: Announcer May Be A Lunkhead, But Is Fox Any Better For Pandering to Show How Enlightened It Is?

No Offense, Jose Mota
Steve Lyons shouldn't have been fired by Fox Sports for making comments offensive to Latinos on Friday night's ALCS broadcast. He should've been dumped long ago for being uninteresting, stating the obvious and not providing viewers much of a clue that he once made his living playing baseball.
Richard Sandomir in The New York Times summed up what led to Lyons's ouster:

Lou Piniella, a guest analyst working with Lyons and Thom Brennaman, noted that the Oakland Athletics could not expect shortstop Marco Scutaro to continue to produce runs as he did when he drove in six during the division series against Minnesota.
Piniella said that expecting similar production would be “like finding a wallet on a Friday night and looking for one on Sunday and Monday, too.” Four minutes later, they had moved to different subjects and Piniella said something in Spanish. “The bilingual Lou Piniella,” Brennaman said.
Lyons said: “Lou’s habla-ing some Español there, and I’m still looking for my wallet. I don’t understand him, and I don’t want to sit close to him now.” The three laughed and continued calling the game.

Dumb, yes. A firing offense? Debatable. Then again, Fox had already suspended Lyons once before for a lame-brained crack at Shawn Green, a Jewish player, for not practicing on Yom Kippur. Apparently at Fox, it's two strikes, yer out.
Lyons was replaced for what turned out to be the final game of the series on Saturday by Los Angeles (I first typed California, then Anaheim)Angels analyst Jose Mota, who does the color on the team's Spanish-language broadcsts, but also does some Fox gigs.
No knock on Mota, who knows his stuff and seamlessly blended into the booth with Brennaman and Piniella. Still, you have to wonder if Lyons had trash-talked another ethnic whether Mota would have been there.
Fox gave itself cover by quickly importing a seasoned and informed voice, but the ethnic link to Mota and the lunkhead Lyons' remarks were a little too obvious. Fox could find a better way to say it's sorry than by pandering.

Lyons could have company on the unemployment line. Lamar Thomas, the analyst on Comcast's airing of that Miami-F.I.U. free-for-all where 31 players were suspended for fighting, may be guilty of providing a little too much color to the broadcast.

To wit, this missive, which is among those being aired out of rebroadcasts of the game:

''Now, that's what I'm talking about. You come into our house, you should get your behind kicked. You don't come into the OB playing that stuff. You're across the ocean over there. You're across the city. You can't come over to our place talking noise like that. You'll get your butt beat. I was about to go down the elevator to get in that thing.''

So far, he's being promised with "disciplinary action." Stay tuned to see if Thomas is allowed to coming down with a bad case of brain freeze and do his best contrite routine before he's shown the door.

Air America Gasping For Breath -- Could Chapter 11 Be The Last In Liberal Radio Saga?

Rush Limbaugh's Having A Good Laugh Right About Now
Air America is bankrupt, fiscally speaking.
A lot of reasons why you shouldn't feel bullish about their future, but you should root for them anyway.
If you'd like to see just how much they owe -- and it's a lot to a lot of parties -- The Smoking Gun has the filing.
In the end, the concept of an all-liberal cum progressive talk network going 24/7 might not be a going concern. But as some posters on the New York Radio Message Board have suggested, AAR might be worth more in pieces than as a whole entity.
In other words, syndicate the most popular hosts, Al Franken, Randi Rhodes, etc., and don't tie down affiliates to carrying all the programming.
There are enough talk stations out there who would welcome some fresh voices, especially if they're shut out from carrying reactionary gabbers like Limbaugh, Savage, Hannity and Beck in their market.
Now's the time to test the waters, because the ship is sinking fast.

Chris Wallace Realizes That Being A Jackass To The New York Times Wasn't Such A Good Idea, After All

Is He Blue? Yes!
The Chris Wallace-Bill Clinton donnybrook refuses to go away, thanks to Wallace, who doth protest way too much.
Wallace crossed the line from legitimate questioner to partisan attack dog when he ambushed Clinton with questions about Osama Bin Laden and then played the role of hurt puppy when his motives were called into account.
Which may have put him in a sour mood when Deborah Solomon interviewed him for The New York Times Magazine and was asked what political party he belonged to.
"None of your business," came the reply.
Which was obnoxious if nothing else, and disingenuous to boot, as The Washington Post tells us. Shock! The Fox News Sunday host is a Democrat, albeit a reluctant one.
"The reason I'm a registered Democrat is that in Washington, D.C., there is really only one party," Wallace fessed up to the Post. "If you want a say in who's going to be the next mayor or councilman, you have to vote in the Democratic primary."
Oh.
The Post helpfully points out that there is a Republican and an independent on the district council. But I guess Wallace's ego is apparently too bruised to worry about getting the facts straight. Bill Clinton certainly feels that pain.

When An Aircraft Crashes Into A Manhattan Building, Think Before You Type

As news began breaking about an aircraft that crashed into a high-rise apartment building on the Upper East Side, the Associated Press, as it's paid to do, started cranking out an initial lead. Too bad, it was wrong.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Police say an aircraft has crashed into a building on Manhattan's Upper East Side at 72nd Street and York Avenue. It is near Rockefeller Center.

No, it's not. For those of you unfamiliar with Manhattan geography, Rockefeller Center is located between Fifth and Sixth Avenues from 48th-51st streets.
In other words, nowhere close to Rockefeller Center, as if that was ever relevant in the first place.
It's a fact that someone at the AP should've gotten right, given that until a couple of years ago its HQ was located at, yep, Rockefeller Center.

Is That Your Entree Or Are You Just Glad To See Me?

Foodie Alert! Guangzhou Is Big Dick of the Chinese Restaurant World With Its Own Penis Eatery
Sometimes, you read stories that you're glad you weren't the reporter sent to cover it. This is one of them. Thank you, to Andrew Harding of the BBC for this, um, package, which first ran on Sept. 23, but is definitely worth catching up to.

Shon Gables No Longer Gone

Former WCBS-TV anchor hottie resurfaces on "The View" and is preggers with number two
Good reviews in the Daily News for Shon Gables, the former Channel 2 anchor, who resurfaced yesterday and today on "The View" in a guest-host role.
One nugget of news: She's expecting number two, though no word on who the father is. Gables' first child was with Bryan Abrams of now-defunct boy band Color Me Badd, who Gables sued last year for being a deadbeat dad.
You can color Abrams more or less broke: He now works in an Oklahoma City tire store.
Gables, judging by my mail, has been missed by many Channel 2 viewers, where she co-anchored the low-rated morning news. The show had grown unwieldy with too many anchors sitting at the desk trying to get a word in edgewise, and the entire crew was swept aside.
The station reportedly offered her a weekend gig, which she turned down and Gables hasn't been seen since until yesterday. But apparently she's been busy.

At Least He Didn't Call Them Macacas: Tom (Chiahuahua) Fiedler Says He's Sorry

Learning To Hate Castro At The Miami Herald Without Being Politically Incorrect
Here's how the news business works nowadays. First, Miami Herald editor Tom Fiedler gets into a lather about charges from his own reporters that the paper caved into anti-Castro forces because the paper's Spanish-language version El Nuevo Herald, rehired journalists who also just happened to be on the Radio Marti payroll.
Fiedler's idea of a retort quickly bit him in the ass, as yesterday's Herald reported:

In staff meetings Tuesday, Miami Herald reporters asked whether the paper was caving to critics. Editor Tom Fiedler dismissed that notion, saying the ''22 people who listen to Cuban radio'' were being stirred up by ''little chihuahuas nipping at our heels.'' He later apologized for his choice of words.

Ay, caramba.

Today, Fiedler put on his ashes and sackcloth to apologize. At least he didn't say his own staff quoted him out of context.

I used an unfortunate term, intending only to refer to the persistence and sharpness of the commentary. My intent was not to offend anyone, although I now realize that I did.

Miami New Times provides the context Fiedler left out of his three-paragraph sorrow saga. That includes a denial that the Monday resignation of Herald publisher Jesus Diaz Jr. was due to community pressure over the Radio Marti fiasco and a critical column by Carl Hiaasen that Diaz was on the verge of killing until his bosses at McClatchy intervened at Hiaasen's behest and threat to quit.

Bottom line: Fiedler, a Herald institution, has been doing everything but somersaults to show he's contrite. Time to move on. The anti-Castro faction will bray regardless of what the paper does. For now, the Herald, which has been nothing if not beleaguered in recent years, needs the steady hand of a seasoned leader rather than the turmoil that making him walk the plank would bring.

Meet The Mets (Announcers)

The Garys (Thorne and Cohen) get a Post-Season Taste, While Howie Rose and Tom McCarthy Need To Slide Over
New York Mets fans, in addition to being blessed with the best team in baseball this year, are also treated to a crop of play-by-play announcers who are at the top of their game.
Gary Cohen, who had established himself as the nonpariel radio voice of the team, effortlessly made the transition to the SNY-TV booth and made the analysis of Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling that much better.
The end of the season should have meant Cohen's year was over in the booth. The Mets and WFAN had other ideas, as he's doing an inning each of play-by-play and color on radio. That means the regular first-rate radio team of Howie Rose and Tom McCarthy get a little less mic time, which they are no doubt underwhelmed about.
It was good to hear Cohen again on the radio, especially his gripping call of David Wright's two-run double in the sixth yesterday, but that would have been McCarthy's inning to call. Instead, he provided authoritiative color.
McCarthy, in his rookie season on Metscasts has been consistently excellent. There are those who say he sounds like Cohen, something I don't hear. But it's a most favorable comparison and one McCarthy has said he takes as a high compliment. McCarthy's profile is diminished only in a way listeners can't see. He went on Weight Watchers and dropped 130 pounds.
Mets fans who caught yesterday's game on ESPN heard another familiar voice, Gary Thorne, who was paired with Bob Murphy on radio during the Mets' last championship season in 1986, and did a second stint with the team on TV for a dozen years until 2003.
Too bad the Murph's no longer around to witness this team. Here's to an October filled with happy recaps.

A Journalism Giant In More Ways Than One: Remembering Johnny Apple

There are few newspaper luminaries who, by virtue of seeing their byline, you make a point of reading if for no other reason that you will be engaged, entertained and the time spent reading will have been well worth the effort.
Such were the writings of R.W. Apple, the not-so-gentle giant of The New York Times, who died today of cancer at age 71.
Because of the roilling changes in the newspaper industry, seeing another reporter with as checkered a career is unlikely at best. Few are the correspondents who roam the world, then help define modern political coverage, while then settling into a more comfortable life as an eminent grise, churning out pieces on travel, food and architecture from wherever the mood struck him.
Todd Purdum's obit of Apple is an elegant account of a complex, irascible man that is thankfully atypical of the drearily perfunctory treatment the Times has given many of its own departed. But Apple deserved no less.

With his Dickensian byline, Churchillian brio and Falstaffian appetites, Mr. Apple, who was known as Johnny, was a singular presence at The Times almost from the moment he joined the metropolitan staff in 1963. He remained a colorful figure as new generations of journalists around him grew more pallid, and his encyclopedic knowledge, grace of expression — and above all his expense account — were the envy of his competitors, imitators and peers.

There are many journalists who want to be like him. Too bad, they'll never get the chance.

To get a taste of what Johnny Apple, was most passionate about, this interview from PBS' Newshour offers a nice flavor.

However, this profile from the Seattle Times from 2004 reminds us that Apple was ever the newsman first, gourmand second.

Amish Shootings Grab Hold Of Most Media Worldwide

Judging by the front pages of newspaper Web sites, the Amish school shootings struck a chord in many parts of the world.
Maybe it was the Amish angle -- and their peaceful, bucolic lives violated by a deranged gunman and that the girls held by Charles Roberts were shot in the head execution-style.
Perhaps it's the desire of foreign media to seize upon the recent school shootings as a symptom of what's wrong with the U.S. Or, it could be a story that dozens of correspondents could get to without a hassle.
Whatever the reason, the British press has been playing it big, including The Guardian, The Sun, The Times as well as the Daily Telegraph. The Independent, whose front page blared "Horror At The Schoolhouse," was also among those who did the obligatory sidebar on the Amish and their 19th-century ways.
Elsewhere, Corriere Della Sera also gave the shootings prominent play, though they were essentially shrugged off by Le Monde and Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung.
However, the shootings were the lead stories on the home pages of the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail in Canada, and also got big play in Australian media, although some readers Down Under were wondering what the fuss is all about. One wrote to The Age in Melbourne:

I am starting to get sick of Australian news picking up on these shootings in the US, as they have no bearing on my life here in Australia. Easy access to guns + the worst social and economic disparity between citizens will always lead to this sort of scenario. The fact is that there are many murders every day in the US. Is 'THE AGE' going to publish all of these?

Well, yes. If it bleeds, it leads, after all.

Many others chimed that the U.S. was "nutters" for allowing guns to be so easy to get. For many they were saddened by what happened, but hardly shocked. Which could be part of the problem.
If it happens often enough, does it stop becoming news? Think about how briefly U.S. military fatalities are mentioned nowadays and you don't have to wonder too hard about that.

Blogs Aren't Where We Go For Breaking News

Duh!
Was this ever in doubt? A Lexis-Nexis survey found that when there's breaking news, blogs are the last place people turn.
Only 6 percent go to blogs or other so-called "emerging media" when the ca-ca hits the fan.
Well, yeah. Bloggers are not exactly known for their newsgathering, rather they gather their own thoughts after others have gathered the news.
Did somebody really need to find this out?
But good news for the 25 quadrillion blogs out there. The topic of greatest interest is popular entertainment, for which blogs, user groups and chat rooms are the most frequented sources after lifestyle media.
So someone get Nick Denton off the ledge now.

Washington Times Wants To Scalp Hastert, But Its Conservative Compadres Decide Not to Go Scapegoating -- For Now

Wall Street Journal Says, Sure Foley's Gay and Maybe A Sexual Predator, But Let's Not Rush To Judgment
The Washington Times made some of headlines of its own this morning by calling on Speaker Dennis Hastert to clean out his office for overlooking/covering up/trying to ignore Mark Foley's email courting of teenage male pages.
Give the editorial board credit for ganging up on Hastert, given the also-ran Times' vaunted status as the GOP Beltway house organ.

Mr. Hastert has forfeited the confidence of the public and his party, and he cannot preside over the necessary coming investigation, an investigation that must examine his own inept performance.

That's gotta hurt, Denny.

But Hastert still has some friends -- for now, at least -- over at the Wall Street Journal, where Paul Gigot is likely jabbed with electric cattle prods should he ever stray from the party line. Today is no exception, where an editorial notes that sure what Foley did was "odd and suspect," but:

Some of those liberals now shouting the loudest for Mr. Hastert's head are the same voices who tell us that the larger socieity must be tolerant of private lifestyle choices, and certainly must never leap to conclusions about gay men and young boys. Are these Democratic critics of Mr. Hastert saying that they now have more sympathy for the Boy Scouts' decision to ban gay scoutmasters? Where's Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on that one?

Where are the Non-Sequitur Police when you really need them?

They're pretty steamed over at the conservative Chicago Tribune, which brings up Hastert's past as a high-school wrestling coach, which should have made him aware of how easily determined predators can get too close to children.

If Foley committed a criminal offense, he won't go unpunished in state or federal courts. But remember, those who knowingly enable predators are guilty of their own sordid offenses. They have to answer too.

The Trib slammed Hastert for running to the Department of Justice for a Foley probe, when he's better equipped to get one done himself and pronto.

Mr. Hastert, you don't need a squad of FBI agents to tell you how you and your colleagues in the House reacted when they first learned that Mark Foley had crossed a line that ought never be broached.

Hastert may have thought he'd get caught some slack by the leading media outlet back home. But cutting slack is why he's in this mess in the first place.

Hastert would be wise to heed the lesson of another Foley, this one Tom, the former Democratic Speaker of the House. Foley had the dubious distinction in 1994 of being the first sitting Speaker to be defeated for re-election since 1860. That was for different reasons, including the GOP tsunami that swept over D.C. during those mid-terms. But still. There's plenty of time until Nov. 7.