The Pariah Channel

If Barack Obama risks media overexposure, the no-shame threats to American values are getting equal time on the public stage.

With Dick Cheney leading the way, the should-be-hiding-in-disgrace are popping up everywhere. John Yoo, the torture memo author, writes a column for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Rupert Murdoch's book-publishing arm has signed up the memoirs of Sarah Palin, who helped wreck John McCain's presidential campaign with her aggressive ignorance.

If Karl Rove is a political analyst, can Bernie Madoff be far behind as a financial cable news commentator?

In an age long gone, as an editor and publisher, I declined to bid for the "inside stories" of criminals, crooks and celebrity liars, on the principle that reporting on their activities was a better journalistic and moral choice than going into business with them.

Silly me! I didn't know that I was being an unbearable gatekeeper against the public's bottomless right to know. Soon we may have a 24/7 pariah channel, or with Fox News on the job, would that be redundant?