Hannity dumping Colmes is not exactly the break up of the Beatles. It has, though, the smell of agitation and recrimination in the conservative ranks.
The eager-to-please Alan Colmes, of course, was never the main act, but rather the “ghoulish figure of the left,” as one Newser commenter accurately describes—a mere appendage to an always-snarling Sean Hannity.
But disappearing him now feels a lot like conservative petulance and anxiety.
Colmes, whose presence on the show represented some sort of act of generosity or of condescension when the conservatives believed they were conquering the country, now must be disappeared to reaffirm rightwing orthodoxy—and, too, as a kind of take-that slap in the face.
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His end is a likely sign of how Fox News faces the news liberal era. On the one hand, it might reasonably move toward the center, trying to soften its tone in light of the new majority. But more in character, it might head in the opposite direction—uncompromising, implacable, last-stand representatives of a dying way of life.
It’s a complicated moment for the conservative network, both ideologically and commercially. It can go down fighting—with its heart in it. Or it can be dragged, stubbornly and sourly, into a more tempered age—which also doesn’t sound like a winning formula.
