Campbell Brown: Bring It, Limbaugh

First 2012 debate for Romney, Bachmann, Gingrich

(NEWSER) - Seven top Republican presidential hopefuls will gather this month for the first New Hampshire 2012 debate. Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum will meet at Saint Anselm College for the face-off, hosted by CNN ’s John King. It's the first debate of the election for Bachmann, Gingrich, and Romney, and it will be held June 13, some eight months before the state’s primary. More»

Essay: He's dismissed as a 'buffoon,' which only backfires

(NEWSER) - Looking back at the Obama administration's early attempt to portray Rush Limbaugh as Public Enemy No. 1, Wilfred M. McClay can only conclude: Big mistake. The strategy backfired in ways that culminated in the midterm shellacking. "Limbaugh had goaded them into elevating his own importance; and in focusing on him and other putative 'leaders,' they blinded themselves to the spontaneous and broad-based popular revolt that was rising against them," McClay writes in Commentary . More»

Critics bid farewell to softballs, suspenders

(NEWSER) - Tonight is Larry King’s final show on CNN—Bill Maher and Ryan Seacrest will be in the studio with him, and word has it he’ll be receiving a taped sendoff from President Obama and chat with more than a dozen other mystery guests via satellite. Some 50,000 interviews later, what the critics are saying:

• King’s career “eternally careened between pinnacles of wild success and pits of utter catastrophe,” writes Glenn Garvin in the Kansas City Star . But “it's hard to find anyone of any significance in the past half-century who hasn't sat across the table.”

Insiders only too happy to bash low ratings, high ego

(NEWSER) - Rupert Murdoch gleefully takes another pot shot at CNN with the news that John King will be the next one ousted from the network. “Since King replaced Lou Dobbs, he's lost more than half his audience,” an insider tells Murdoch’s New York Post . “If it were a fight, it would be stopped on a TKO because of the bleeding.” Another insider blames King for dooming Campbell Brown, whose show followed his and who is leaving this month. More»

Anonymous 'on-air personality' says everyone hates Coop

(NEWSER) - First Campbell Brown, then Larry King, and now Anderson Cooper? CNN is perilously close to losing its star anchor, who is entertaining offers from a number of suitors, sources tell the Wrap . Cooper's contract is up next year, and word is that there wouldn't be much love lost if he departed. He's constantly at odds with his executive producer, one staffer says. More»