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Yesterday, CNN cancelled Elliot Spitzer's show and he gave his last performance. I say performance because while the show started out as a fun and engaging hour of banter, with the hard-driving Spitzer facing off against the mild-mannered and supremely composed Kathleen Parker, once Spitzer forced her out, the show became too much Spitzer all the time. Too relentless. Too up tempo. Too aggressive. In the end, too predictable.
Spitzer is bright, very bright. And he used his vast, and interesting, network of friends to make his show better than it might have been. Who doesn't want to hear from Simon Schama? And, when the Libya crisis first broke, Spitzer turned to his friend Fouad Ajami, and other CNN shows began using this first-rate scholar whose opinions are always deeply informed. But, I found myself unable to watch the show unless I was myself feeling exceedingly pugnacious and, at 8 p.m., I am generally not thinking smackdown.
