An Unmployed Lou Dobbs Hints At Run For Big Job

Lou Dobbs showed up on The Daily Show last night where his entrance was given a soundtrack by a Mexican mariachi band. He revealed to Jon Stewart that CNN told him the network was going to move away from advocacy journalism and more toward "middle of the road journalism," something he wasn;t too keen on.

Dobbs is now gone from CNN and word comes today that Dobbs might consider a run for the presidency. Yes, we've all heard this many times before, but this time it sounds like it might just happen. He is, after all, currently out of a job. This is what he had to say about the matter:

"I am ruling nothing out. ... I have come to no conclusions and no decisions," he said. "Do I seek to have some influence on public policy? Absolutely. Do I seek to represent and champion the middle class in this country and those who aspire to it? Absolutely. And I will."

That's a yes if I've ever heard one.

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And That's The Way It Is: Candy Crowley's New Look

• Have you wondered what Candy Crowley did to start looking healthier? The LA Times did and asked the CNNer.
  
  
• Former FNC anchoress Suzanne Sena is now reading fake news for "The Onion," which seems to be helping keep some TV journos in business.
  
  
• Speaking of The Onion, this quote from one of the site's videos is the funniest thing I've heard all day: "There's no harder thing than to have Glenn Beck outlive your child."
  
  
• A Sarah Palin-Glenn Beck presidential ticket is too good to be true.
  
  
• Rumor has it that Charlie Gibson wanted George Stephanopoulos to succeed him, not Diane Sawyer. And he isn't happy about ABC News's choice.
  
  
• Rachel Maddow dies at the hands of Sarah Palin's new book. Watch the vid here.

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Picture of the Day: Jane Velez-Mitchell is a Talking Head

HLN's (sigh, why does everything have to be hyphenated these days?) Jane Velez-Mitchell has made it onto OUT Magazine's "Out 100" in 2009. A nice feat for the Glenn Beck replacement who the mag describes as a "lesbian vegan animal activist recovering alcoholic."

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Sarah Palin Vs. Kate Couric: Round 53

Over a year later and Sarah Palin is still trying to spin her disasterous interview with Katie Couric. The former Alaskan governor will unveil a new book to the world which should provide the blogosphere plenty of fodder over the next few weeks.

In her new book, Palin calls the CBS anchoress "badgering" describes her as someone who suffers from "low self-esteem” mainly because her troubled evening news "assignment wasn’t going very well." Such a subtle attacks.

After the jump, the 2 page excerpt from the book which apparently someone leaked to Matt Drudge's fedora hat collection.

Going Rogue: An American Life
by Sarah Palin
Chapter Four; Section 8, pages 255-257

By the third week in September, a “Free Sarah” campaign was under way and the press at large was growing increasingly critical of the McCain camp’s decision to keep me, my family and friends back home, and my governor’s staff all bottled up. Meanwhile, the question of which news outlet would land the first interview was a big deal, as it always is with a major party candidate.

From the beginning, Nicolle [Wallace] pushed for Katie Couric and the CBS Evening News. The campaign’s general strategy involved coming out with a network anchor, someone they felt had treated John well on the trail thus far. My suggestion was that we be consistent with that strategy and start talking to outlets like FOX and the Wall Street Journal. I really didn’t have a say in which press I was going to talk to, but for some reason Nicolle seemed compelled to get me on the Katie bandwagon.

“Katie really likes you,” she said to me one day. “she’s a working mom and admires you as a working mom. She has teenage daughter like you. She just relates to you,” Nicolle said. “believe me, I know her very well. I’ve worked with her.” Nicolle had left her gig at CBS just a few months earlier to hook up with the McCain campaign. I had to trust her experience, as she had dealt with national politics more than I had. But something always struck me as peculiar about the way she recalled her days in the White House, when she was speaking on behalf of President George W. Bush. She didn't have much to say that was positive about her former boss or the job in general. Whenever I wanted to give a shout-out to the White House’s homeland security efforts after 9/11, we were told we couldn’t do it. I didn’t know if that was Nicolle’s call.

Nicolle went on to explain that Katie really needed a career boost. “She just has such low self-esteem,” Nicolle said. She added that Katie was going through a tough time. “She just feels she can’t trust anybody.”

I was thinking, And this has to do with John McCain’s campaign how?

Nicolle said. “She wants you to like her.”

Hearing all that, I almost started to feel sorry for her. Katie had tried to make a bold move from lively morning gal to serious anchor, but the new assignment wasn’t going very well.

“You know what? We’ll schedule a segment with her,” Nicolle said. “If it doesn’t go well, if there’s no chemistry, we won’t do any others.”

Meanwhile, the media blackout continued. It got so bad that a couple of times I had a friend in Anchorage track down phone numbers for me, and then I snuck in calls to folks like Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and someone I thought was Larry Kudlow but turned out to be Neil Cavuto’s producer. I had a friend call Bill O’Reilly after I was inundated with supporters in Alaska asking why the campaign was “ignoring” his on-air requests for a McCain campaign interview. I had another friend scrambling to find Mark Levin’s number. Aboard the campaign plane I was within twenty-five feet of reporters for hours on end. Headquarters’ strategy was that I should not go to the back of the aircraft and talk to the press. At first this was subtle, but as the campaign wore on, Tracey or Tucker would call headquarters to request permission, and someone in DC would respond, “No! Absolutely not- block her if she tries to go back.”

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Last Night on "Inappropriate King Live"...

What a very bizarre moment on "Larry King Live" last night. Beauty pageant contestant/Christian/sex tape star Carrie Prejean showed up via satellite to hawk her new book and keep her 15 minutes on life support. Things were going fine between her and King - that is until the CNNer asked why she decided to settle her lawsuit against the Miss USA pageant. Prejean accused him of "inappropriate," removed her mic and just sat there talking to someone off camera and while King tried to get her attention.

They say that there's a first time for everything and we just witnessed the latest: The mother of all softball interviewers was actually accused of being inappropriate.

Watch the awkwardness after the jump.

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BriWi: "Fuggedaboutit"

"30 Rock" is one of the best shows on television at the moment. Sure it's weekly product placements can get pretty annoying (Cisco's networking gear was this past week's plot-driven advertiser) but the show is well-written, witty and consistently funny. The show also tends to promote within the NBC family by having NBC News anchors pop in at any given time. In the past we've seen Matt Lauer, Larry King and Meredith Vieria make cameos but the guy who has seemingly been making the most appearances on the show is Brian Williams.

After the jump watch a short clip of BriWi from the latest episode of 30 Rock in which he resurrects his spot on NYC accent which he perfected during his "Saturday Night Live" hosting gig in 2007.

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Quote Of The Day: Contessa Brewer's Careful Choice of Words

"And today you can add Maine to a long line of states, about 30 so far, where voters have chosen to define marriage traditionally: The union between one man and one woman." MSNBC Journo Contessa Brewer using anti-same sex marriage talking points while reporting on the Prop 1 vote in Maine.

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