The Day I Thanked God For Sarah Palin.

It was this past Friday. July 3rd.

I know I've mentioned this before, but, as a news junkie, I hate holidays.

All the 24 hour cable news networks considered July 3rd, July 4th.
Thus, a holiday.

Whenever it's a holiday, the cable news networks, whose job it is to provide NEWS, do not provide news.
Or talking heads.
I love the talking heads.
The only place you can find news on a holiday on national TV is on the half-hour network telecasts, with a substitute host.
Because nobody wants to work on holidays.
And you can't find the talking heads anywhere.

Maybe Fox News has news coverage, but I don't bother to check.

So CNN shows Larry King rerun marathons, and MSNBC has "Lockup".
Endlessly.
24 hours of documentaries about life in prison.
Why on earth does MSNBC think that their core audience would want to watch even a minute of interviews with tattoed guys in orange jumpsuits with shaved heads, behind bars?
Where's the common ground between them and Rachel Maddow?
I don't get it.

If I'm home, I just rely on Tivo to get me through.
But I was at a cookout at my relatives, so I was lost at sea.

Cable news networks are, in a way like drug dealers.
They know their viewers are addicts, and like drug dealers, they show them no mercy.
They make their clients go cold turkey.

So you pray that some, hell, ANY major story breaks on a holiday so MSNBC will stop showing prisons.

Friday, my prayers were answered.
There was Sarah Palin announcing her "retirement" from politics.
Who knows why?
Who cares if she means it or not?
She probably doesn't.
She probably has something up her sleeve.
But it didn't matter.
It qualified as a major story.

And there was David Schuster, being wrangled in from whatever cookout he was attending to cover this event, and pre-empt prison programming.

And it was on for over four hours.
And we even got some talking heads.
And they actually mentioned some other news.

Then, it was over.
And they went back to the tattooed bald guys in the orange jumpsuits behind bars.

And I got the sense of what Cinderella must have felt like at midnight.

I'm hoping something else happens today, because I don't think I can sit through much of Michael Jackson's funeral.

The jumpsuits might even be preferable.


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