John, you are just too smooth, where is your personality, your gumption?! You sound like a drone. Watch Keith once and awhile, get some emotion into your game, and ask the hard questions. Thanks.

Bebop! you don't spit the seeds out! you eat 'em. ;>

I watched CNN every day - sometimes for 20 minutes, sometimes for a couple of hours, but I watched it every day. The weekend was when CNN aired its entertainment news. Oh, and whenever Larry King was on - that was an entertainment segment. I never watched Larry King. But I did watch Elsa Klench if she happened to be on when I tuned in, because she cracked me up.

I haven't watched CNN for several years now. CNN is like a familiar relative.. an aunt or an uncle who was fun and centered during the prime of their lives, but who went a little crazy. Like Uncle John who used to be cool, but decided to dye his hair, wear a toupee and date women 30 years younger. Or Aunt Theresa who suddenly left her husband and kids and ran off with a 20-something tennis pro from the resort she and the family had gone to for years. Not only are Uncle Joe and Aunt Theresa self-deluded, but they wrecked everything they'd had. And for what? Short-term gratification? Self-congratulatory kicks?

That's what's happened to CNN. It used to be something people relied on, something people respected. Then one day CNN dyed its hair, had its teeth bleached blindingly white, hired himbos and mimbos and started giggling. I trace this to the era when CNN began giving the odious Jerry Falwell credence as a "respectable" spokesman for religious people in the United States. Jerry Falwell was a noxious, bigoted, controlling conman. When CNN saw that Falwell created "controversy" they said "Kewl. He's our new religion guy. He gets attention and attention = ratings."

Add to this Larry King's obsession with odd businessman Ross Perot. Sure, Perot got ratings. The guy was a born showman. But to have a showman like Perot announce on carnival barker Larry King's show that he was a serious candidate for the presidency... that was infotainment, pure and simple, disguised as "a civics lesson."

CNN devolved and became what it is today, a lot of himbos and mimbos grinning and leering over celebrity stories who then put on their "serious faces" when the producers decide to cut to the latest live coverage of a phony terrorist threat at some bridge somewhere ("We are now watching police slow traffic... and look into cars") for the next 3 hours. Or obsess for days over the latest school shooting which CNN exploits to the last drop of phony outrage. News porn.

The few greybeards left are relegated to sideshows where they ask inane questions of equally inane but well-prepared politicians. In the event that a hardhitting question is asked, not to worry -- the politician will completely deny any fault and sidestep the meat of the question. And the grizzled old former anchor will let it slide.

And then there's "populist" Lou Dobbs, the Harvard graduate who lives on a 300 acre gentleman's farm, is a regular at the Four Seasons, uses private jets to see his pals like billionaire leverage buyout king Henry Kravis and has been paid to do promotional videos for Shearson Lehman Brothers, Paine Webber, and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. Yeah -- Lou Dobbs is for the little guy all right. As long as the little guy buys his books and lines his pockets with more dough.

I don't know who John King is because I don't watch CNN anymore, and that is all John King needs to know ---that people who used to watch CNN every day for years no longer watch it because of people like him. He can refer to the number of people who watch whatever show he appears on as proof of something, but CNN used to count a helluva lot more people in its audience. Those people haven't all gone over to Fox. Most of them just don't watch cable news anymore, like me.

When cable news becomes news again and gets rid of stenographers and sycophants like King, we'll start watching again.

I was promising myself I'd not act like a possum-belly crank and just hush-up. I blame you for the pretty, oh so "pretty" words.

All day I refrained from John King's e-mail about him mentioning of the "looking in the mirrow"...But John King does reminds me of a 'gi' who would take from his fatigues a small 3X5 mirrow and gaze at his self in a firefight. He'd pluck his eyebrows, and make a open-ape grin, and even check his teeth.

We wished he'd had stayed home with Uncle Ed and squirt water-pistols at the 4-foot-farm-sheep.

If you ran out of water and his blivet was near-full, he'd never share. If you felt dehydrated and dare ask "Pretty Boy" for a gulp of water he'd get a strange anxious eye-glare and he'd keep up a stare at you...as if you were a buzzing 3-foot long gila lizard.

He was so vain. When Pretty Boy went home from his jungle tour in 'Nam he asked a PFC to take a last photo of him getting on the chopper for the last time. Before he was airlifted by helicopter home-bound Petty Boy 'ordered' the last-photo to be developed and sent to his American address. Serious. I wonder if the PFC did send it?

His nickname was 'Pretty Boy'...He survived a year without any wounds or getting STUFFED into a body bag. That was rare in the First Cav Air Mobile Units. We were called no DEROS delta. Deros meant? The D-ate E-listed R-cruit S-cheduled O-verseas assignment ends?

We joked that the NVA figured it was not worth wasting a bullet on that cute Pretty boy.

I bet he's looking in a mirrow now?

You would think someone of my advanced years would know better than to disagree with the conventional, syncophantic wisdom of the masses sucking up to Glenn Greenwald. Nor should I have been surprised by the cliche reponses ("those who can't do, teach"). All that was missing was "Your mother wears Army boots." At least one critic had the courage to sign his name. The rest carped from ambush.

I am keenly aware of the shortcomings of my profession. Unlike Mr. Greenwald, I know firsthand what it takes to practice good journalism and recognize that it is harder to find daily. Doesn't keep me from looking though, or teaching students how to do it right. It is an honorable calling, fallen on hard times brought about by a changing world, 24/7 cablevision and the voracious Internet.

Still, I have hope. My school produces some pretty bright students who they have gone on to respectable careers. They learned to be ethical, not to take anonymous shots, or smugly assume that they alone have a corner on the truth. And for those who aspire to be critics, also a worthwhile calling, I would ask only that they learn what they're talking about before they launch their opinions.

Hugs and kisses.