Is Roger Ailes the P.T. Barnum of Cable News?

The line keeps thinning between journalism and stand-up comedy. A few recent examples:

• FEMA, the punchline of the early millenium, managed to pull off a Katrina encore so jaw-dropping that even NPR could best respond with satire. When it become public that FEMA Deputy Director Harvey Johnson had called a press conference to answer questions on his agency's handling of the San Diego fires and peopled the "press" with his own staff, how could you report it. NPR's David Folkenflik did the best job of displaying the absolute folly of it, in this report. Well-reported and then he one-upped it all, both offering his own press conference in which only he answered the questions. Masterful. Original column by the Washington Post's Al Kamen, uncovering the story behind the story, summing it up with: "This takes the prize for chutzpah."

• The Fox Business Network looking for kudos and borrowing an old Hollywood technique -- pick only the words you like from the reviews. As Keith Olbermann pointed that out in declaring Roger Ailes, who I think is becoming the P.T. Barnum (“Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant”) of the journalism business, the worst person in the world (for Thursday). Ailes' promotion department used these two "kudos." Promoted part leads, with brackets containing, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story:

Toronto Globe and Mail: "They set out to change the face of financial news. [Now please change it back.]"

Economist: "CNBC has nothing to compare...."  [with the 5pm show," “Happy Hour”, filmed in the Bull & Bear bar at the Waldorf. It remains to be seen if Main Street will be grabbed by a group of good-looking young New Yorkers chatting amiably about, say, how “metrosexuals are out and menergy is in”, after work in a bar—but, hey, “Friends” did okay.]

          The full and entertaining Economist take, here.

• And then of course the whole Colbert for President affair. It's so bizarre that sometimes you sense that Stephen himself is mulling what a real run might be like, having a hard time parsing the whole real business of fake media and fake politics from real media and real politics. Welcome to the club.

          Anne Marie Cox's take on it was best I heard, as she dissected Tim Russert's limping attempt to seem hip as he interviewed Colbert.  "The senior deans of the news corps have to appear like they're in on the joke....They seem sad and desperate." Cox, former Wonkette and Suck editor and now Time.com's Washington editor, pointed out the odd Russian nesting doll nature of this little, though meaningful, story. Her take is encapsulated several minutes into NPR Talk of the Nation's "Poltical Junkies" report. All kinds of entertaining Colbert posts at HuffPost. And of course the now-famed New York Times Colbert column, by way of "guesting" for Maureen Dowd, here.