Paula Zahn has unceremoniously been given the boot by CNN:

A day after CNN announced that it was hiring Campbell Brown to replace one of its prime-time hosts, presumably Paula Zahn, Ms. Zahn confirmed today that she was leaving the cable channel, effective Aug. 2.

The unraveling of “Paula Zahn Now,” which made its debut at 8 p.m. in spring 2003, was ultimately a function of ratings. Though CNN took pains recently to note that the number of viewers for the show had ticked upward earlier this year, Ms. Zahn’s task remained a Herculean one.

The estimated 558,000 viewers her program has been drawing, on average, each weeknight this year, according to Nielsen Media Research, represents less than a quarter of the nearly 2.3 million who watch “The O’Reilly Factor” with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News. Ms. Zahn’s program also draws about 100,000 fewer viewers a night than “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” on MSNBC.

O'Reilly has been losing viewership, particularly in the key 25-54 demographic so it was not O'Reilly that did Zahn in. It was Olbermann, whose Countdown program is now the MSNBC flagship and ratings driver. I do wonder what CNN thinks Campbell Brown can do for them in the time slot. Mrs. Dan Senor (of Iraqi CPA fame) will, one assumes, attempt to do better in the 25-54 demo. But how she steals from Olbermann is hard to see. I guess she will be going after O'Reilly to get younger conservative viewers. We'll see.

Joe Klein, June 2006:

What can the Democrats do? They can play politics or be responsible. The political option is to embrace "cut and run"; call for an immediate withdrawal, as Kerry did; and hope the public is so sick of Bush and sick of the war that it will punish the g.o.p. in the fall. But embracing defeat is a risky political strategy, especially for a party not known for its warrior ethic. In fact, the responsible path is the Democrats' only politically plausible choice: they will have to give yet another new Iraqi government one last shot to succeed. This time, U.S. military sources say, the measure of success is simple: Operation Forward Together, the massive joint military effort launched last week to finally try to secure Baghdad, has to work. If Baghdad isn't stabilized, the war is lost. "I know it's the cliche of the war," an Army counterinsurgency specialist told me last week. "But we'll know in the next six months—and this time, it'll be the last next six months we get."

Joe Klein, today:

How to Elect a Republican President (and Congress) in 2008

. . . Allow the Jacobin--off with their heads!--wing of the party to control the agenda. Keep calling for votes on Iraq that will fail. Don't call for votes on Iraq that might succeed (like the Salazar-Alexander Amendment).

Even though the Republican field is prohibitively pathetic, and the President's ratings have now reached the mid-twenties, a Democratic defeat in 2008 in entirely possibly if the public comes to believe that Democrats are only interested in futile, symbolic gestures.

Because the Alexander-Salazar Amendment has such teeth. Given how wrong Joe was in 2006, it is surprising he has no sign of humility now. But he would not be Joe Klein if he did.

Glenn Greenwald makes an excellent point about the unquestioning nature of Media scrutiny of statements by the U.S. military, especially Generals, very especially, General David Petraeus:

Klein, while paying lip service to "surge" opposition, hails Petraeus' brilliant counter-insurgency strategies and spends his time demonizing war opponents as morons while lavishing "surge" proponents and Bush's chosen military commanders with the most obsequious praise. That is who Col. Boylan [Petraeus' press liaison] then gets to hold up as an example of "liberal" "journalists" to whom Gen. Petreaus has given interviews. That is why there are few things more damaging than how reverent and gullible and authority-worshipping and Beltway-defending are those assigned to play the "liberal pundit" role in the Beltway court.

This phenomenon is not limited to the Joe Kleins of the Media. Too often our representatives, witness Sens. Clinton and Biden discussing withdrawal from Iraq last night, do too. It is why I have such trepidation about Petraeus' September report.

More.

No spoilers here...

On CNN's Reliable Sources this morning, Howard Kurtz and his guests discussed how newspapers and internet sites broke the embargo over the release of the new Harry Potter book. His guests were outraged, calling the leaks "immoral" and "unethical."

Since I don't care about Harry Potter, I have been trying to put this in context of something I do care about, to see if I would have the same reaction as Howard's guests.

What if newspapers and internet sites had leaked the ending to the Sopranos?

I would have been livid at being told the Sopranos' ending before it aired, especially if I hadn't gone looking for it -- for example, if I happened to click on a leaking article or website which didn't put at the top in bold, big letters, "spoiler alert...ending revealed" or something to that effect.

But, what if the sites all contained the spoiler alert? Is it still ethical or immoral to write about the ending?

And who has the ethical and moral right to demand the ending be shielded, the author/series creator or the readers/viewers?

Good questions. Who's got answers?

The Aspen Daily News Gonzo Edition, dedicated to the late Hunter S. Thompson, is now available online.

• Hunter's wife Anita is the guest editor.

• Curtis Robinson recalls Hunter's words on objective journalism:

"So much for Objective Journalism. Don't bother to look for it here -- not under my byline or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms."

• Hunter's son Juan writes about his legacy.

• Matthew Mosely writes Send Lawyers, Guns and Money.

• Tim Mooney writes The Doctor is In.

There's lots more, including cover art by Ralph Steadman. Go on over and check it out.

For a guy who has gotten everything wrong on Iraq, supporting the Neocon agenda from beginning to end, and who clapped as loud as possible for President Bush's action on most every contentious issue, you have to admire Fred Hiatt's sheer gall. He has the gall to call someone not named Bush or Cheney or Hiatt irresponsible on Iraq:

The decision of Democrats led by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) to deny rather than nourish a bipartisan agreement is, of course, irresponsible.

See, Hiatt's newest friends, the so called GOP Moderates like Warner and Lugar, don't have a chance to make phony deals, as Warner did in the May Iraq Supplemental for "benchmarks." We now know "benchmarks" never meant a darn (well, we knew it then but Fred Hiatt pretended it meant something.)

The good news is Fred Hiatt and his ilk are irrelevant now in terms of framing public opinion. The Beltway Gasbags are ignored by all except themselves. The question now is can Democrats muster the resolve to stop Fred Hiatt's favorite policy disaster, Bush's Iraq Debacle. Harry Reid has gotten it. And I think most Dems are getting it. And Fred Hiatt continues his long track record of ignominy. The man has been a disgrace for some time. Thank God he is now an irrelevant disgrace.

Let's hope the Democrats are as resolute.

Hunter S. Thompson's 70th birthday is today. His wife Anita shares her thoughts.

There's a birthday party tonight at Owl Farm for Hunter,which I'm missing because I have court here in Denver tomorrow. Owl Farm parties are always a great time and Hunter's spirit is right at hand.

(Update: Looks like the party didn't happen, but I'm told a small group assembled to toast Hunter and they did shoot a cannon or two.)

Saturday, the Aspen Daily News will run a commemorative issue for Hunter, with Anita as the paper's guest editor. Ralph Steadman will grace the cover and Walter Isaacson and others will be contributors. Anita writes:

I’ll be including a cut-out card to put in your wallet with the things to do and not do while talking to the police.

The timing of the special edition is not just for Hunter's birthday, but for the Aspen Institute Symposium on Hunter's writings, Politics, Truth and Justice, to be held Saturday night. Hunter's son Juan has done a great job of putting it together.

More....

Headlines, NYTimes:

Democrats Fail to Force Vote on Iraq Pullout . . . The measure, which called for troops to begin departing within 120 days, was defeated in a procedural vote on what is known as a cloture motion. It received 52 “yes” votes, to 47 “no” votes, but Senate rules require 60 yes votes to pass the motion, which would have overcome a Republican filibuster of the measure.

How about this headline? "Dems Fail To Overcome GOP Filibuster on Iraq"? Same number of words and actually accurate.

Just doing my part to help keep the Senators awake tonight during their all nighter.

The MC5, Kick Out the Jams, Unedited version, probably recorded between 1968 and 1970.

Update: Think Progress is live-blogging. Sen. Durbin says to call your Senators through the night. Huffington Post is having a live chat Wednesday on how to end the war in Iraq.

Sen. Chris Dodd weighs in. And here's a short video of Phil Ochs singing "I ain't marching anymore." (he sounds like he's on helium but it's the best one I could find.)

So O'Reilly is upset again, but the why he is upset proves yet again that O'Reilly is really quite the buffoon. This is the comment apparently that set him off:

Yes, the Pope is a Primate
As the cover of Free Inquiry magazine said a few years ago, "Catholic Primate Accepts Evolution."

Also amusing is that O'Reilly compares Daily Kos to Nazis for the comment from one of thousands of users considering the Pope was a member of the Hitler Youth. And no, I am not calling the Pope a Nazi. Just noting the irony.

What could the headline writer have been thinking when he wrote this one?

Senate Narrowly Backs Bush in Rejecting Debate on Increasing Time Between Deployments

By JEFF ZELENY and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: July 12, 2007

WASHINGTON, July 11 — A solid majority of the Senate’s Republicans stood by President Bush’s Iraq policy on Wednesday and blocked consideration of a plan to give American troops more time between combat tours. But Democrats drew fresh Republican support for other proposals as they vigorously pushed to change the administration’s war strategy. . . .

The lede sentence gives you the headline

"Senate Republicans Stand By Bush's Iraq Policy, Block Debate on Changing Course"

The journalism in today's newspapers is atrocious.