The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz wrote an interesting piece on Roland Martin being the first African American to helm a show on CNN since Alan Keyes' aborted run on "Alan Keyes Is Making Sense."
Martin is sitting in for Campbell Brown on "No Bias, No Bull" and may get his own weekend, primetime show in the end.
In it, Kurtz goes through Martin's history as a journalist, his Liberal-leanings (despite that one time he voted for George H.W. Bush) and being anti-abortion/pro-death penalty. (Um ... Irony? If people are people and fetuses are people and murderers are people shouldn't you be pro all life? I mean, I got the Catholic's back on this one. And do you not know how many people, white and black, are being released from death row due to DNA evidence? We're killing innocent people while murderers walk the streets. You're like Alan Keyes, man. You're NOT MAKING SENSE!)
That said, I'm happy for Martin. He's a confident dude. I think he can live up to the not-quite-centrist view of the show. It's in fourth place so it can't do worse. I don't think he'll be a complete Obamabot or anything no matter what News Busters says. But some folks are seriously questioning CNN's common sense on this move.
Namely ... a hater.
We all have haters. Roland might think The Snob is a hater. I'm not. I'm a shameless self-promoter who has used two little complaints you made about the blog and pimped them as hard as possible to tell people that Roland Martin reads this blog.
Also, I'm not a big fan, but I didn't say what this dude said about you.
One who still hasn't taken to Martin, now a commentator on Tom Joyner's radio show, is Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg. They clashed bitterly on Martin's old radio show.
"I see him as a man who can't think, can't talk, and here he is doing both on television," Steinberg says. "I find it mystifying that CNN would take this local laughingstock and inflict him on the rest of the nation."
Classy! But Martin being Martin says he got his.
Martin, who says he "smacked him around" on the radio over a controversial column, calls Steinberg "a media wimp . . . a know-it-all with a penchant for being snotty."
Personally, I think Martin is simply highly ambitious. This is not a crime. I'm ambitious. But being ambitious will make people sometimes become annoyed with you or question your motives. Good luck with Campbell's show, Martin. This is CNN. If you're pretty, they let you read a teleprompter. If you have a brain, you could be put in that closet where they keep Soledad O'Brien.
Poor Soledad. Someday that contract will expire, girl, and you'll storm whatever is left of CBS and tell Katie Couric to get out of your damn chair.
PS. Did anyone check Roland out? How do you think he did?
Danielle Belton | 
