Odd Couple?

The New York Observer’s Felix Gillette writes about FBN’s Sandra Smith and Don Imus…among other things…

The Fox Business Network turned two years old this month. And there is arguably no better way to get a distilled vision of where the channel has been, and where it might be headed, than by watching the daily back-and-forth banter between Ms. Smith and Mr. Imus.

On the one hand there is Ms. Smith, who joined the network for its launch in October 2007. She is sunny, blond, blue-eyed, manicured, glossy, optimistic, self-assured, radiant.

A money honey wed to a curmudgeonly dad: Such are the necessities of TV financial journalism in 2009.

On the other, there is Mr. Imus, who joined the network earlier this month. He is 69 years old, dark, dour, stormy, self-destructive, gruff, weathered.

It’s an arranged marriage between a vivacious market enthusiast and a grouchy, market skeptic, between a money honey and a curmudgeonly dad. They make an odd couple. But such a union is perfectly in keeping with the uncertain hot-and-cold, giddy-and-despairing state of the U.S. economy.