CNN's Crossfire is no more

After having been on the air since 1982, CNN's political shout-fest Crossfire aired it's last show today.

Out of literally hundreds of political "debate" shows all over cable television, Crossfire was notable as literally the ONLY show which actually had some effective and fearless partisans for the Democratic view in Carville and Begala.

And it was also literally the ONLY show anywhere on cable or network television on which one could actually hear opposition to the invasion of Iraq before the war.

Think of it. Every other show featured a hard right partisan, sometimes several, "balanced" by someone who could be classified as a moderate Dem at best, if not merely a moderate Republican. It was as if it was against the rules to have any effective spokesperson for the left on any of these shows.

During the lead up to war, Begala and Carville and their guests must have been a little too threatening to the overwhelming effort to eliminate any voices of dissent, and after the invasion, CNN decided to not only cut the show in half from it's traditional hour long format, but to move it to such an early time slot that it ensured that it would get no wide audience.

A few months ago, Tucker Carlson left the show and was given his own show in PBS in response to intense pressure from the right to meddle in that last bastion of independent programming. (along with giving an unrebutted forum to the editorial board of the arch-conservative Wall Street Journal on it's own show in what amounts to a public tax subsidy to the very profitable Dow Jones corporation which owns the Journal.)

And now, they've decided for no apparent reason, to cancel the only remaining political "debate" show to feature strong voices from the left.

Another step has been taken towards eliminating any opposing views on popular media