More Spitzer/Parker
The Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Rodney Ho writes about the Spitzer/Parker news on CNN…
Jonathan Klein’s CNN is doing just fine from a revenue standpoint. But its most high-profile real estate – prime time – has been in a bit of a free fall lately. He needed to shake things up, give CNN some buzz, try to create appointment viewing.
His solution at 8 p.m.? Hiring a once respected Wall Street prosecutor and New York governor who took a major fall in 2008 after cavorting with prostitutes: Eliot Spitzer. He’s paired with Kathleen Parker, who calls herself a “rational conservative.”
“When you’re in a room with Eliot Spitzer,” Klein said, “he’s in high def while everyone else is in standard def. He’s so smart, so locked in, the energy he throws into it, he synthesizes all of that. He sinks his teeth into issues and not in a surface way. Kathleen Parker is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist. She’s clever and insightful and provoking. Together, they make a compelling team.”
June 25, 2010 at 1:07 pm
“Together, they make a compelling team…”
Together, they’ll bring in about 12 new viewers (that is if BOTH of their familes are watching).
June 25, 2010 at 1:08 pm
You know what was good TV? Curtis and Kuby!
I know had been on radio for years, but MSNBC had them on for a couple of months around noontime. I’m sure they’re not up to snuff for many “elites”, but they were good TV!
June 25, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Parker is just another Weigel and will likely blow this up too.
June 25, 2010 at 1:12 pm
They got Joe! That’s 13.
June 25, 2010 at 3:39 pm
-They got Joe! That’s 13.-
Now now, I’ll give any show Tamron Hall is not on at least one shot; that doesn’t quite qualify as ‘got me’. Hell, I’ll even watch Larry O’ Donnell the first night, but that’s it. Don’t push me..
Missy, who’s Curtis and Kuby? I’m gonna feel stupid after you tell me, aren’t I?
June 25, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Curtis Sliwa and Ron Kuby. Sliwa is a conservative and the founder of the Guardian Angels. His shtick is his street persona. Kuby is a left-wing lawyer who used to work for William K u n t sler. In one of their most infamous cases, they worked on the defense of the blind sheik (the piece of garbage behind the first WTC bombing). They were also big mob lawyers, a tradition Kuby carried on and later caused his split with Sliwa.
Nearly 20 years ago, Sliwa was kidnapped, shot, and nearly murdered – he only survived by jumping out the window of the cab he was in…while it was still moving. John Gotti Jr was indicted for it, but managed to skate. At some point in recent years, Kuby got in on defending Gotti Jr for something and that was pretty much the end of Curtis and Kuby.
Sliwa will almost certainly never talk to Kuby again, let alone work with him.
Dr. BW has met both (Sliwa multiple times, Kuby once) and says that they’re for real, except that Curtis isn’t as street as he comes across on the radio, at least in terms of how he speaks. Kuby is affable, but revels in being loathed, which makes sense considering that he’s something of a self-hating Jew.