This article titled “Piers Morgan’s first CNN outing is second best to Fox News” was written by Richard Adams, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 18th January 2011 22.17 UTC

Is it always going to be second prize for Piers Morgan? For years he was editor of the tabloid that trailed behind Rupert Murdoch’s organ. Now, having taken over Larry King’s role as CNN’s marquee interviewer, Morgan finds himself in second place once again to Murdoch’s Fox News.

According to ratings firm Nielsen, Morgan’s heavily advertised debut on Monday in the 9pm slot for CNN garnered a respectable 2.1 million viewers, a substantial increase on the average nightly figure of 657,000 that King was pulling in the last three months of 2010.

But even with the hype surrounding Morgan’s first guest Oprah Winfrey, Piers Morgan Tonight couldn’t crack Fox News’s grip on the cable TV news ratings. Morgan had the misfortune of running into Fox News’s Sean Hannity interviewing Sarah Palin in the same time slot. That match-up got 2.36 million viewers and continued to make headlines the next day.

Morgan’s show did easily beat MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who was watched by 1.1 million people for her interview with the film-maker Michael Moore, a frequent guest. But as the New York Times’s media correspondent Brian Stetler noted:

Of course, the true test for Mr Morgan will come not on night one or night two, but weeks and months from now.

Morgan’s appearance had a tepid response from US critics – the Los Angeles Times calling it “a non-starter” – but none were harsher than the Washington Post’s Hank Stuever, who damned Morgan’s “very Windows XP-looking set” and concluded:

But after all that buildup, Morgan’s first show turned out to be a fawning and completely unnecessary interview with a successful businesswoman named Oprah Winfrey. It was a droning, previously recorded hour (Morgan has said he prefers to do taped interviews) on a network in desperate need of a newsy, dynamic talk show. The goal was to replace Larry King Live with something better, right?

Morgan’s technique, said Stuever, made Oprah’s previous interview with the notoriously mild Barbara Walters “look like a performance of Frost/Nixon”.

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Here is Larry King’s interview with Russian PM Vladimir Putin.

Former first lady Barbara Bush has decided to toss a stink bomb in Sarah Palin’s direction. I’m not sure why she felt the need to do that, but she did it. Ironically, Sarah Palin was the only person to stick up for George W. Bush during the 2008 election. When the only friend Bush had was his dog Barney, Sarah would remind the crowd at every campaign stop how much Bush had done to keep the nation safe.

No good deed goes unpunished…

We’re supposed to be on the same side here. It’s bizarre and counterproductive to engage in this kind of thing.

This is hilarious. Ann can get away with saying stuff that no other Conservative can. I love it. She says she wants to strap all liberals to a polygraph machine and ask them if they believe in God and love their country. LOL!

Remember when Dr. Laura repeatedly said the “n-word” on-air and was forced to quit? The media howled, the NAACP howled, Al Sharpton howled. The entire democrat media complex was up in arms. It’s simply unacceptable to use that kind of language if you’re white.

Or is it?

Here’s Bill Maher on Larry King dropping the word as casually as Jay-Z. If you start hearing a loud roar after the clip it’s the deafening sound of silence from the media.

To be honest, I wouldn’t even be highlighting this under normal circumstances because I don’t think it really matters. I’m not trying to be the word police. But what makes this story important is the blatant double standard. A leftist can say racially insensitive things all day long and nobody says a word. Meanwhile, a conservative can something completely innocuous and he/she is accused of using “code words” — which is the accusation Maher is making.

N-Words aside, it’s laughable that the far left is still trotting out this code word bullshit. Nobody is buying into it. If they were Tea Party candidates wouldn’t be kicking ass all over America.

The only people who are obsessed with Barack Obama’s race are Democrats. They can’t stop thinking about it and talking about it. When I look at Barack Obama I see our president. When Democrats look at him they see the first black president.

Speaking of race, this seems like a fine opportunity to plug the article I just wrote for Examiner.com about the “Diverse Tea” campaign that FreedomWorks recently launched.

If you’re a republican bashing republicans you can can expect the royal treatment and an almost unlimited platform from the media to air your views. Such is the case with Meghan McCain.

What I find most irritating about Meghan is the way in which she goes about flogging her opinions. The whole thing is just so painfully predictable. We’ve seen it time and time again.

If you’re a republican and you want a media career just bash other republicans. If you’re a washed up hack republican and want a new lease on life you just bash other republicans. In less than twenty four hours your schedule will be booked solid for the next month.

You can hit Olbermann, Matthews, and Maddow one week. Then hit Larry King, Fareed what’s his name, and maybe Wolf Blitzer the next week. By week three you really begin to hit your stride with an appearance on The View.

Accuse republicans of being small minded bigots and homophobes and you can squeeze another few weeks of TV out of it at the least.

Meghan McCain knows exactly what she’s doing. This is about her finding a career as a so-called republican for her dad’s sake, but still get to attend the liberal cocktail party circuit. It’s blatant, it’s obvious, and it’s sick.

This all started with Meghan attacking Ann Coulter in a column on The Daily Beast. I was happy to see Ann respond in the most effective way she could have — not responding at all. Ann hasn’t so much as mentioned Meghan McCain. That was a far more brutal way to respond than anything she could have said. Her silence spoke for itself.

Let me also say, I’m sympathetic to many of Meghan’s views. I’m only 27 and don’t share many of the socially conservative views that elders in the party do. However, I don’t criticize the wing of the party that is conservative, because they are an important element.

I also believe in loyalty, and attacking people in the party who’ve done far more than I to spread the republican brand is foolish and immature. I also think throwing people under the bus for the sake of a media career is disgusting.

Appearing on MSNBC to bash republicans is high treason as far as I’m concerned.

Here’s Meghan’s most recent appearance on Larry King. Oddly enough, she won’t appear on O’Reilly even though he’s invited her numerous times. I wonder why that is?

You could just see the white hot hatred that Joy(less) Behar has for Ann Coulter. Without at least two more liberal bitches by her side, Joy(less) is pretty much defanged. She didn’t stand a chance against Coulter, because Ann’s intellectual dexterity makes left-wing haters like Behar have a meltdown. Joy(less) is an idiot. The only “news” she ever gets are the falsehoods Keith Olbermann peddles every night and the occasional drivel found on far-left websites. Joy(less) loses her cool and gets angry while Ann remains steady and confident as always.