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Bad news: Parker leaving Parker-Spitzer. Worse news: Spitzer not leaving

We here at EFD, me and you, explore all avenues of the universe. Today we take a trip to Cable News Alley where the grand-daddy of cablenewsdom, CNN, seems as if it has turned into a dead-end street.

What brings this to mind is the news that conservative columnist Kathleen Parker is taking the Parker out of the cable news prime-time “Parker-Spitzer” show. Parker says she is leaving the program after five months in order to put more focus on her syndicated column career. I have to say that I won’t particularly miss her, but then again, I wouldn’t miss co-host,  former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer either.

CNN seems like it has entered a rebuilding phase of its life. I suppose that happens to most successful ventures that have nowhere to go except down once they hit the top.

It just seems the network has foundered slowly over the past decade. Take CNN’s “American Morning” for instance. I haven’t really cared much for the show since the not-related team of  Soledad O’Brien and Miles O’Brien were yanked as anchors. Their replacements, former CBS News correspondent John Roberts and ex Fox News anchor and now wholesome mother fox Kiran Chetry, never really floated my boat. Roberts recently left the program and CNN for Fox, knocking up fiancee and mid-morning CNN anchor, Kyra Phillips, in the process.

T.J. Holmes has replaced Roberts and while an African-American male and Nepalese female anchor team is a boost for ethnic diversity in cable newscasts, American Morning, just seems to continue in a downward spiral. The show seems too upbeat and sugary for my taste, especially when I am on my first and lone cup of morning joe. Speaking of which, I like the MSNBC “Morning Joe” show with semi-conservative, former U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough, better than any of the morning line-up but I just can’t watch the back-and-forth political talk first thing in the morning either. So where does that leave me for my morning news? The three network shows like in the old days, perhaps? Heavens no! I’d rather be dipped in oil and fried like a morning doughnut.

CNN hasn’t fared much better in the afternoon or evenings as well. Wolf Blitzer’s “The Situation Room” (Ah boys, it looks like we got us a sit-e-a-tion here) wears thin. Anderson Cooper 360 wears even thinner whether he is at 180 or O. Maybe Piers Morgan is an improvement over Larry King. One would think a chimpanzee in a Speedo would be better than the perpetual hackdom that was King’s program. But what I have seen has not at all wowed me.

I keep looking for CNN business correspondent Ali Velshi and morning weather guy and back-up anchor Rob Marciano to do something major at the network. Both could pull it off although Velshi’s Yul Brenner meets Steve Urkel appearance (I should talk) might be a little much for a star spot. Marciano seems, on the other hand, like bonafide star material — looks, talent, personable and smart. We shall see.

All the nuttiness that is with the present ultra-conservative wave will hopefully pass once people begin to wake up see that they had to be drunker than a barrel full of monkeys (what’s with all the damn primates?) when they elected all those Republicans last November. When that happens, it may just be a matter of time that Fox News falls like a peanut from the Golden Gate Bridge. Wow, what imagery! Then with a hard fall, viewers might want to watch real news again and just maybe CNN will get the message. The network still beats the competition by leaps and bounds with breaking news, especially with their international reporting now on the tube in the Middle East.

Hopefully, CNN will get its spitz together and rebound like the giant it once was. They have only one way to go and that is up.

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Ding dong … Life after Murbarak begins

It isn’t exactly “Ding Dong the witch is dead,” but hundreds of thousands of Egyptians finally unleashed some long-sought jubilation after the announcement was made today that their dictator of more than 30 years, Hosni Mubarak, stepped down as president.

Such a transformation is sweet for millions of Egyptians who have wanted democracy in their land and those who love democratic rule should feel similarly  exuberant that such a government may finally set up shop in the Middle East. Just what happens to make a democratic form of government a reality is now in the myriad configurations of establishing such rule.

Egypt’s regional neighbors and world neighbors all look to the country now to see just what happens and how in ruling itself without, hopefully, the yoke of tyranny. It’s neighbors have reason to worry for various reasons. It’s more sinister neighbors abhor democracy and, if a free and dictator-less  Egypt succeeds, those neighbors such as Iran and Libya and the list goes on have cause to worry because — as the end of the Soviet empire shows — even a taste of freedom can be quite contagious.

Israel has a number of reasons to worry as does the United States, especially should  the transformation turn to fundamentalist zealotry as was the case with Iran and the sinister theocracy that came out of the student demonstrations there in the late 1970s. There are also varied reasons why those in the free world might like to see an Egyptian failure rather than success, mostly due to greed and politics. Perhaps they can all get together on Fox News and bloviate.

Hopefully, Egypt will choose a path toward an enlightened democracy and that its Western and other world neighbors will welcome the change.

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But wait a minute! Maybe Mubarak is not president anymore

The Egyptian ambassador to the U.S. just now told Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s “The Situation Room” that “the Constitution retains power” but Hosni Mubarak has transferred all the powers to the vice president. The dialogue between Blitzer and Ambassador Sameh Shoukry is very confusing.

Blitzer asked why couldn’t Mubarak say what he had to say where all could understand it? Skoukry said he didn’t know.

Is this spin?

Skoukry says the head of state of Egypt is the president who has transferred all of his power to the vice president. Mubarak has no power.

With such lack of clarity, no wonder hundreds of thousands are on the street pissed off.

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Mubarak’s arrogance could make for a new bloody phase of an Egyptian revolution

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak spoke for what seemed like forever today while perhaps hundreds of thousands in the streets waited to hear the magic words he never said. Those words would have been, should have been: “I quit” or something equivalent. In Cairo’s Tahir Square they shouted around 11 p.m. Central Time “Get out! Get out! while Mubarak kept talking and talking and talking. And he kept saying nothing and nothing and nothing. At least to those who want Mubarak to leave.

“I don’t know if he has a brain or his brain is elsewhere … This guy is calling for more rage in the country,” I heard one Egyptian interviewed by CNN in Tahir Square say, just after Mubark’s televised speech ended.

There was anticipation in the media Mubarak would step down today. But it seems like the Egyptian people who are wanting the longtime leader gone yesterday are getting the Lucy Van Pelt football treatment. Mubarak sticks out the football and then takes it away just as the long-suffering Egyptians run up to kick it.

Mubarak spoke, through translation, as if he is the single-handed savior of his nation while he seems to be only tearing it apart with each delusional speech he makes to an increasingly angry Egyptian people. This could be the worst yet for his nation. He has a pissed-off people on his hands. That can only spell more unrest, perhaps massive bloodshed.

It seems Mubarak is too arrogant, too bought in to his own legend and his own legacy to care if even more blood is shed.

If given a chance by Clash — will I stay or will I go — Mubarak should have picked the latter. He chose the former. He is a fool. The blood, if shed, will be on his hands.