Matt

MSNBC is booting libertarian-conservative program host Tucker Carlson to replace his program with one hosted by political correspondent David Gregory. Gregory is a leading White House correspondent for NBC and has helped to host some of NBC's presidential debates.

Like many liberals, I once considered Tucker Carlson a massive tool who seems snide and arrogant about his anti-populist political positions. I take particular issue with his discussions on race (he sometimes has Al Sharpton on just to call him ridiculous) and his seeming insistence that, because of Affirmative Action and "reverse discrimination," white men are more discriminated against than women or African-Americans.

But I'm actually sad to see Carlson go. He is not a down-the-line right-winger and he opposes both the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq. His discussions with his regular guests from across the political spectrum are remarkably civil when compared to Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly bashing their guests and claiming to be far more moderate than they actually are.

MSNBC has taken a remarkable shift to reporting from a more liberal perspective, not as a way to advertise or promote a set of views, but because it has been a lucrative decision. First, Fox found that faux-news (they call it "infotainment") and partisan sensationalism won it more viewers than any other channel. When MSNBC's sole left-leaning program host, Keith Olbermann, became a hero to partisan Democrats, more and more people with those views gravitated towards the channel. It wasn't long before Chris Matthews started seeming more liberal and Dan Abrams got his own program where he would be highly critical of Conservative "scare tactics."

Carlson was a good balance for where the rest of the channel was going, because, though he is a right-winger, he can present it in a way that liberals and intelligent people across the spectrum like. He gives us a good sense of what upper-class swing voters and moderate white Republicans are thinking.

The three major cable news networks have settled themselves into clear political niches; Fox is still strongly conservative, MSNBC follows the intellectualized liberalism of college-educated Democrats and CNN is the new populist news network which draws most strongly from the elderly.

To make it a little more clear, Fox = Bush, CNN = John McCain and Hillary Clinton, MSNBC = Barack Obama.