Maybe the Fox News Channel really is fair and balanced after all. With a nod to Stephen Colbert, here is an example of Fox’s famous even-handedness.

On May 1, Fox’s Steve Doocy reported on the performance of a Bush impersonator at the White House Correspondents Dinner who worked alongside the president.

Fair: “…the second president was actually an impersonator by the name of Steve Bridges, who nailed the commander in chief’s mannerisms and vocal patterns.”

On October 12, however, Fox’s Mike Straka had a different take on Bridges, this time paired with Barbara Streisand.

Balanced: “During her show, La Babs employed a bad Bush impersonator to sing a duet with her, all the while lambasting the real administration’s policies.”

According to Fox, Bridges is a bad Bush impersonator when working with Streisand, but when working with the president, nails him. The lesson for Bridges, I suppose, is never to work with Democrats. Ironically, that’s philosophy of President Bush and the Republican controlled Congress as well.

“In the three weeks leading up to Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 7, CNN will marshal its resources and political expertise in multiple one-hour reports looking at the widespread dysfunction besetting Congress, the courts and the executive branch.”

These words open a CNN press release announcing the network’s 2006 election coverage. The same notice closes with this quote from CNN political director Sam Feist:

“As voters prepare to make critical decisions about the prosecution of the Iraq war, the wider war on terrorism and the economy, Americans of all ideologies have a nagging sense that something is fundamentally wrong with the way our government operates.”

If those sentiments represent the tenor of CNN’s reporting, we may actually witness an election season where the public is helped, rather than harmed, by television news.

Of course, it’s difficult to suspend a natural and earned skepticism that big media can suddenly perform its duties in the public interest. The facts that government has been dysfunctional, and that Americans have sensed this for some time, have been largely ignored by the media. As have the facts that the media has been dysfunctional and that Americans have sensed this as well. The decline in approval for the president and the Republican controlled congress is not a revelation to most Americans. But it did not gain much traction in the press until a Republican congressman heated up the debate with lurid tales of sex and depravity. Now the press is just noticing an electoral wave that has been building on the horizon for months.

Giving them the benefit a doubt that they don’t deserve, here are some of the upcoming programs that appear most interesting:

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 18, at 7 p.m. Lou Dobbs’ “War on the Middle Class,” conveniently borrows the title of his just released book to look “at the cost of housing, education and health care, as well as stagnant wages and the difficulty of achieving and maintaining middle-class status in this country.”

THURSDAY, OCT. 19, at 7 p.m. “Jack Cafferty’s: Broken Government,” presents the curmudgeon’s view of “government spending, corruption, abuse of power, electronic voting, the political party system and America’s borders.”

MONDAY, OCT. 23, at 8 p.m. “The Do Nothing Congress,” has Ed Henry explaining “the paralysis brought on by partisanship and obsession over raising money for elections.”

SUNDAY, OCT. 29, at 7 p.m. In perhaps the most profound topic of the series, Lou Dobbs and Kitty Pilgrim investigate, “Democracy at Risk: E-voting’s Threat.” This hour will cover the issue from “voter fraud and voter ID legislation to systematic problems with electronic voting machines.”

It remains to be seen if there will be any substance behind the fluff in this PR. It would be easy to produce the same kind of mushy programming for which these conventional media outlets are known. Some of the pitfalls that lead to inferior journalism are standard components of their reporting toolkit. For instance, the common practice of presenting opposing views, even when those views are baseless (or lies), is called “providing balance” in contemporary jounalism. If CNN can avoid falling back on the practices to which they are accustomed, the schedule above might actually hold some promise.

David Kuo was a special assistant to the president in the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. He is a long-time conservative Christian activist who has also worked for Bill Bennett and John Ashcroft.

Now he has written a book that demolishes BushCo’s disingenuous embrace of evangelical America. Tempting Faith is Kuo’s confessional account of an office that was purported to assist communities of faith in their missions to help disadvantaged neighbors, but instead manipulated those groups for political gain.

Kuo describes an office that has contempt for the groups they claim to serve. White House honchos like Ken Mehlman and Karl Rove would refer to their evangelical supporters as “the nuts.” Kuo writes:

“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy,'”

With support for the President and his party lurching ever lower, the story told by this book could severely damage their electoral prospects amongst their most reliable constituency. But the rest of us already knew that the usurpers in the White House were not to be trusted, didn’t we? Now the faithful will get a taste of how their false idol has betrayed them.

In case anyone is wondering who the President turns to when forming policy, he revealed some of the inner workings of his braintrust today at a press conference. In answering a question about Iraq’s future, the President said:

“How do I know that would happen? Because that’s what the enemy has told us would happen. That’s what they have said. And as Commander-in-Chief of the United States military, and as a person working to secure this country, I take the words of the enemy very seriously, and so should the American people.”

Specifically, this is whose word’s the President takes seriously:

“…all you got to do is listen to what Osama bin Laden says. Don’t believe me that it’s a part of the war on terror; listen to the enemy…”

With consultants like that, it’s a little easier to understand why his presidency is such a miserable failure. It’s just too bad for the 655,000 dead Iraqis that Bush prefers the advice of his enemies to that of the 67% of his fellow Americans that oppose his disasterous war.

If you need another example of how decayed the lifeless body of the media is, Charlie Gibson, anchor of ABC News’ World News Tonight, has been kind enough to offer one.

Gibson thinks that the ads during his broadcast are slanted too heavily to senior viewers. He complains that they, “bespeak an older audience.” Bespoken like the 63 year-old geezer that he is. But you would think that an old hand like himself, might have a better understanding of television adverstising than is exhibited by this statement:

“Why say the important audience is 25 to 54 if you run ads that obviously appeal to people over 60 or 65?” Gibson says. “Why aren’t you trying to get commercials that appeal to the audience you want to get?”

Somebody send a telegraph to Gibson (I’m not sure he can work a cell phone). Broadcasters do not use commercials to attract audiences to programs. They use programs to attract audiences to commercials. The reason WNT has so many ads for Depends and Viagra is that the advertisers know where there customers are. Replacing those ads with ads for sports cars and iPods is not going to produce a groundswell of young viewers. Wake up and smell the Metamucil, Charlie.

Those people wearing “Stewart/Colbert ’08” T-shirts can stop hoping.

That’s the lede in an AP report dispelling speculation that the Comedy Central stars were gearing up for a White House run. Where they got the idea that the pair were really running is anybody’s guess. My guess is they got it from watching Comedy Central but thought that “comedy” was a synonym for “news”. I can’t be too critical of that since I myself have often mistaken news for comedy (I watch Fox too much). Be that as it may, Jon Stewart has come forward to state unequivocally that the dream is over. He described the shirts as…

“…a real sign of how sad people are…Nothing says ‘I am ashamed of you my government’ more than Stewart/Colbert ’08.”

That sounds more like a rallying cry than a concession to me. Perhaps this statement is not so Shermanesque after all. And I would like to point out that, while Stewart dismissed people wearing Stewart/Colbert T-shirts, he said nothing to discourage people wearing Colbert/Stewart T-shirts (like those above). So despair not, patriots. Keep hope alive.

[Full disclosure: Those Colbert/Stewart T-shirts are currently a News Corpse advertiser. Big f**kin’ deal, killjoy. This is breaking news.]

Joe Maguire, an editor with Reuters, is out of a job. His employer gave him permission to write a book on American Patriopath, Ann Coulter, but when he did so, he found himself unemployed.

The book, “Brainless: The Lies and Lunacy of Ann Coulter,” is a response to Coulter’s “Godless.” It takes on Coultergiest’s many fabrications, errors, and hypocricies, and demolishes them with well researched and documented sources.

And for his trouble, Maguire is now out of a job. Reuters betrayal is frought with mystery. One employee who would only speak anonymously for fear of retribution from management said that he and other colleagues of Maguire were informed of his departure and that they “weren’t allowed to ask why.”

While Reuters admitted that they had given Maguire the OK to write the book, Maguire says that there was still some sort of misunderstanding:

“There was a difference of opinion about the approval I received to write this book,” Mr. Maguire said. “I thought I had met the conditions, and proceeded accordingly. As a result, I no longer work there.”

It will be interesting to see how this unfolds. I’m not sure it makes a lot of sense to fire an author as he is about to hit the book tour circuit. He may just be inclined to spill his guts. I hope he does.