Howard Kurtz

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The increasing polarization of cable news is transforming, and in some ways shrinking, the electoral landscape. What has emerged is a form of narrowcasting, allowing candidates a welcoming platform that helps them avoid hostile press questioning and, in some cases, minimize the slog and the slip-ups of retail campaigning.

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Rahm Emanuel's candidate may have won the presidency, but that didn't dull Emanuel's serrated edge.

"He's a guy who stabbed a steak knife into the table at Doe's restaurant after Bill Clinton's election," his former colleague Paul Begala recalls. "He was screaming about people screwing us in the campaign."

The media portrait of the man dubbed Rahmbo -- the foul-mouthed, take-no-prisoners, twist-your-arm-out-of-its-socket operative -- is grounded in reality. But it isn't the whole picture.

Most journalists, to some degree, are caricaturists. We may be interested in nuance and context, but the compression of reporting often reduces people to a couple of attributes at best. You know the shorthand: "tough-talking" and "aggressive," or "soft-spoken" and "mild-mannered."

Guess which sells better at the box office?

Read the rest here.

This time, Rick Sanchez really sounded remorseful.

In an appearance on ABC's "Good Morning America" Friday morning, the ousted CNN anchor said flatly that he "screwed up" in calling Jon Stewart a bigot and suggesting that Jews run the networks--comments that cost him his job last week.

"I apologize and it was wrong for me to be so careless and so inartful," Sanchez said. "But it happened and I can't take it back and you know what now I have to stand up and be responsible."

The tone was much different than in a statement earlier this week, when Sanchez extended an apology to anyone who "may have been offended."

I've just discovered what it is like to become a media metaphor.

My announcement that I'm leaving The Washington Post after 29 years to join the Daily Beast, the two-year-old Web site founded by Tina Brown, triggered all sorts of coverage. And I have to think that much of it was based on the notion that this symbolized a shift in the media world, from print to pixels.

First and foremost, this was a difficult decision because I love The Post and it will always have a place in my heart. Even in an era of diminishing resources, it remains a great newspaper.

But as I've spent more of my time in the digital world, the lure of helping shape something new became irresistible. As Washington bureau chief, I'll be overseeing and eventually expanding the Beast's presence in the capital while also reporting, writing, blogging and of course tweeting.

Boy, you call that Jon Stewart a bigot, he punches back!

Well, maybe punch is a bit strong.

Stewart struck back Monday night. (AP)

Stewart poked back at Rick Sanchez over the ex-CNN anchor's "extremely pokable show." You had a sense that Jon wanted to get his licks in but was wary of kicking an overcaffeinated television personality when he's down.

The Comedy Central funnyman did allow himself a serious point: Sanchez, in his radio rant against Jews last week, suggested that Stewart had a coddled upbringing in suburban New Jersey. Sure, said Jon, whose parents were divorced when he was young, "the fortunate son of a single mother in the education field."

Secretly recording a United States Senate candidate?

That sure sounds like a down-and-dirty trick.

And while Sharron Angle says some mildly embarrassing things in her conversation with a tea party candidate in Nevada, I'm not sure it hurts her. Why? Because many voters will probably sympathize with her over the surreptitious taping.

Angle says, for example, "The Republicans have lost their standards, they've lost their principles. ... Really that's why the machine in the Republican Party is fighting against me. ... They have never really gone along with lower taxes and less government."

And why would she be full of praise for the GOP? The party establishment lined up behind her primary opponent, Sue Lowden. If anything, the leaked remarks will probably help her in the race against Harry Reid among those who are fed up with both parties.

NEW YORK -- They are, somewhat self-consciously, an odd couple, the northern pol and the southern belle, the prosecutor and the journalist, the man trying to recover from disgrace and the woman graciously forgiving his sins.

"I bring the everyday American perspective to the table," says Kathleen Parker. "I get 'em. I've been living with them."

"I'm not gonna concede that we aren't real Americans up here in the big urban," says Eliot Spitzer.

"I'm not saying New Yorkers aren't. I'm just saying you aren't."

Read more about the odd couple thrown together to launch a prime-time CNN show Monday night and about how the disgraced ex-governor is trying to redeem himself through television.