I've been saying for years that Shep Smith, who anchors the Fox Report on Fox News, is a class act. He did an heroic job - along Anderson Cooper of CNN, Geraldo Rivera of Fox News, and other reporters on the scene -- in holding the Bush government to account for its disgraceful Katrina response. Smith smacked down Joe the Erstaz Plumber last year, when the "Plumber" was waxing ignorant about Obama and Israel. And last night, Smith did this:
Smith's stubborn integrity - in the above case, apologizing to his viewers for the blatantly unbalanced Fox coverage of the New Jersey gubernatorial campaign, with a beaming Shannon Bream interviewing only the Republican candidate - shows the error of dismissing all of Fox News as worthless or worse. The reality is a lot of that operation is hopelessly right wing, but a professional on camera can still do the right thing.
And, in some ways, that's more valuable than blanket denouncements of Fox from the left and the White House. Given the political attitudes of the audience that Fox has attracted, a few words from Shep Smith can do a lot more to shake up their view of the world, and see it more clearly, than all the ranting of Keith Olbermann (who, coincidentally, wasted yet another few minutes of his show tonight lashing out at a Fox Entertainment television show, 24).
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