Fortunately, the car bomb did not detonate.

The terrorist turned out to be Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistan-born U.S. citizen. And, not surprisingly, Shahzad wasn’t upset about the health care bill. After pleading guilty in court he said, “I consider myself a Mujahid, a Muslim-soldier.” He was upset, as he put it, over “American occupation of Muslim Lands.”

Shortly after the attack, Bloomberg prematurely asserted that there was no evidence suggesting the bomber was part of any recognized terror network. Shahzad later told the court he trained with the Pakistani Taliban to learn bomb-making and other related skills.

Could it be that Bloomberg has underestimated the threat of Islamist terror, or is there another agenda?

The issue has again become relevant in recent days. The New York Times ran a series of articles and editorials blaming the NYPD for using the film The Third Jihad: Radical Islam’s Vision for America as part of their counter-terrorism training.

The articles calling the film “a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims” and a “Hateful Film” are riddled with inaccuracies and omissions.

Following publication of the articles, Mayor Bloomberg stated that NYPD used “terrible judgment” in showing the film, despite admitting that he had never seen it.

We were not aware that the NYPD was using the film, but when we learned of it some months ago, we were pleased that the officers would have an opportunity to learn about the indoctrination taking place in certain segments of Muslim society in America. The film reveals what viewers are unlikely to see on the evening news: What terrorists, radical preachers and Islamists are saying in their own words, in their own mosques and media, to their followers.

The film exposes how radicals employ the dual strategies of “violent Jihad,” along with a “cultural Jihad,” through which Islamist groups use coercion and non-violent means to gradually expand their influence over Western society.

Now, Mayor Bloomberg, The New York Times and others want to bar law enforcement officers from seeing the film. The question is, why?

We reject, outright, the charge that our film is anti-Muslim or that it casts a shadow over the entire Muslim community. In fact, we go to great lengths throughout the film to differentiate the radical Islamists from peaceful Muslims. The film is narrated by, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim-American, who has dedicated his life to exposing the threat of radical Islam.

Our critics have failed to mention these points and have chosen not to challenge the film on the merits of its thesis or content.

Perhaps the reason Mayor Bloomberg wants The Third Jihad banned is the same reason he insinuated the Times Square bomber was a health care terrorist — namely, CAIR.

CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) is one of many Muslim interest groups that purport to represent the Islamic community in America but in reality have well established ties to Hamas and other terror groups.

CAIR was designated by the U.S. Justice Department for its role in terror financing during the nation’s largest-ever trial on the subject. As a result, the FBI has officially severed all ties with the “advocacy organization.”

Outside of its support for terror organizations, CAIR works to quickly and effectively to silence any discussions about radical Islam by playing the racism card and accusing critics of Islamophobia. CAIR’s devices are effective.

As soon as the current story broke, CAIR immediately branded the film “anti-Muslim propaganda” in a press release. This was followed by a CAIR-led protest on the steps of City Hall calling for the resignation of the NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly.

The entire episode could have been a chapter in The Third Jihad. We are now seeing “cultural Jihad” in action. In order to avoid agitating Muslim constituents, Mayor Bloomberg  and Commissioner Kelly are backing away from the film, regardless of its merits.

The net result is that CAIR, a designated Muslim interest group with ties to terror financing, is now telling the NYPD how it should go about fighting terror. If that’s not the ultimate act of subversion, I don’t know what is.

Politico loves Stephen Colbert because Stephen Colbert loves Barack Obama and is waging war against the Right and free speech. America, however, is, to be kind, indifferent to Colbert. 1.44 million viewers and only half that among the 18-49 group, does not make you King of anything.

But Colbert knows how to play the game and understands that if he wants these kinds of hollow accolades and the opportunity to push his left-wing agenda and to have history revised in his favor, he must appeal to the right people, and the right people are not THE people; the right people are the left-wing elites who infest our corrupt media.

In the face of ratings dwarfed by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, with ratings lower than those of most every primetime show on Fox News; lower than those of “Pawn Stars,” “WWE Wrestling,” reruns of “The Family Guy,” and “Hoarders,” here is your corrupt and wildly out of touch media at work:

Colbert now stands alone as the 2012 election’s must-watch court jester. And watching they are — and the comparisons with Stewart are inevitable.

“The satire is fantastic and very unambiguous,” said Sirius XM’s Julie Mason. “I am starting to get alarmed by how many people think Jon Stewart is a newsman. He is a nonfiction entertainer. I do love Colbert more than Jon Stewart.”

Erin McPike, a political reporter for RealClearPolitics, said, “I can’t think of another comedian who has the pulse of politics quite like Colbert. It does look like Stewart has become Colbert’s sidekick — sort of a role reversal from how things used to be, which makes it funnier in my opinion.”

“I’d say Colbert is definitely the edgier of the pair these days,” said The Atlantic’s Garance Franke-Ruta.

Politico actually writes that Colbert is the 2012 election cycle’s “must-watch.” And yet the propagandist behind this piece, Patrick Gavin, never bothers to mention that no one watches him. Hilariously, Gavin reports that Colbert’s ratings are “steady.”

This is worse than being bubbled, though, this is all about a political agenda. Even MSNBC’s Chuck Todd has stated openly that Colbert is all about taking down conservatives (a fact Gavin omits when describing Todd’s concerns), but what Obama’s MSM Palace Guards really like is Colbert’s ferocious, fascistic attacks on unlimited political speech.

Super PACs aren’t just the enemy of whomever they’re targeting in the political world, super PACs are the MSM’s number-one rival for the relaying of information to the masses. In order for the media to control the narrative they must have the airwaves and cable channels all to themselves.

The irony here is that there is no bigger group of super PACs in this country than Colbert’s own Comedy Central and the mainstream media. Each is backed by gajillionaires and are all part of a multi-national corporation. Oh, and they all have left-wing political agendas. So of course Colbert and his trained MSM seals want unlimited political speech in the form of super PACs toxified and eliminated, for there’s nothing that threatens the left more than free and open debate.

Controlling the narrative is how you elect Democrats and that’s where the MSM’s clown-monkey Stephen Colbert found his free speech-stifling niche.

No one watches Colbert, but he’s not looking for an audience, he’s looking for accolades from the elite and the influence opportunities they offer him to push the country towards undermining free speech and getting Barack Obama reelected.

What Colbert is doing to kill free speech is a massive con. The only bigger con is the one currently in play by the MSM to pretend that Colbert has some sort of populist appeal.

But the numbers don’t lie, and Colbert’s real appeal (outside of the predominantly white and leftist Politico newsroom) is statistically something romantically close to ZERO. He’s also the first so-called satirist I’ve ever come across who wants to limit free speech.

Well, other than his mentor Jon Stewart.

Lenny Bruce would be so proud.

—–

HuffPo:

“He is making a mockery of the system,” Todd said. “…Is it fair to the process? Yes, the process is a mess, but he’s doing it in a way that feels like he’s trying to influence it with his own agenda and that may be anti-Republican.”

He cautioned the media to be “careful” about amplifying Colbert’s message, and said it should not be treated as “shtick” or satire.

“What is his real agenda here?” he said. “Is it to educate the public about the dangers of money and politics, and what’s going on? Or is it simply to marginalize the Republican Party? I think if I were a Republican candidate I would be concerned about that.”

Todd concluded by saying that he “idolized” American politics and didn’t want to see people become more cynical about them.

Less than a few minutes ago, Colbert was on MSNBC’s  ”Morning Joe” being fawned over by Scarborough, his guests, and his audience. All rather nauseating.

I also disagree with Todd’s claim that Colbert is doing something noble in going after these Super PACs, but we’ll leave that debate for another day (more on that here).

The mistake no one should make, though, is to buy the notion that Todd is the only member of the MSM to have cracked Colbert’s code. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature knows what Colbert is up to. Furthermore, Colbert fully understands that his anti-GOP crusade will get him the MSM exposure he desires because the media shares his agenda.

The only difference between Todd and his colleagues (especially at NBC) is that Todd is at least somewhat troubled by what’s going on.

Ken Tucker

Lowlights from an elitist frustrated over his inability to defend President FailureTeleprompter: [emphasis added]

Huntsman was undoubtedly relieved he didn’t have to stand on-stage Monday night to face the most raucous, roused-rabble audience of any Republican debate held thus far.

[T]he people in the seats hailed lustily the history lesson offered by “Professor” Newt Gingrich: “Andrew Jackson knew what to do with his enemies — he killed them.”

It was a wild, schizo crowd. They yelled their approval of Rick Perry’s suggestion that America should “go to zero on foreign aid.”

The audience showed a nasty streak in the booing Fox questioner Juan Williams for asking Gingrich[.]

The jeers that erupted the second Williams uttered the phrase “black Americans” was chilling on this Martin Luther King Day. Gingrich didn’t help matters much when he said a bit later, “Barack Obama has put more people on food stamps than any president in history.”

It was a light laugh line in a night that was heavy with malice — not from the candidates, but their supporters. Moderator Bret Baier might have done a bit more to try and quell the mob.

What Tucker is doing is trying to scare off moderates from joining the “nasty mob.” This is the same approach these MSM liars used against the Tea Party.

And the left obviously hates the fact that Obama owns the food stamp record, so it’s now racist to speak the truth, especially on Martin Luther King Day — because we all know Dr. King would want his day used as racial club to stop people from speaking the truth. You know, because he was all about that. For Tucker to exploit one of our greatest Americans in such a cynical, divisive, and racially charged way is about as low as you can get.

But it’s early in the election, and you can bet the house Tucker and company haven’t come close to hitting a bottom.

People always accuse me of hating the media. I’m just hating them back.

Man, I love the American people.

—–

Because those left-wing journOlists at Politico share Colbert’s agenda to define GOP candidates as out-of-touch, because Politico shares Colbert’s goal to deny free speech to millionaires not named Stephen Colbert and corporations not named Politico, it makes sense that after gushing all over Colbert in somewhere around 258,223 stories, Politico would bury the lede in the 258,224th:

Via POLITICO’s Mackenzie Weinger in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Stephen Colbert made his appearance at the Café Moms town hall via a recorded video message:

Stephen Colbert made a cameo appearance at the Café Moms town hall meeting in Myrtle Beach on Monday with a recorded message asking the audience if they agree with Mitt Romney’s line that “corporations are people.” …

“My next question for the Café Moms South Carolina town hall is: What do you think about South Carolina’s favorite son forming an exploratory committee to run for president? While you discuss that I’m going to call my mom.”

And snark, snark, snark, and blah, blah, blah.

The real story, however, is found (as it usually is at Politico) near and at the bottom:

Most of the audience said they thought corporations were indeed people before Colbert came back onscreen in another taped segment. …

The crowd, with just a few exceptions, said they had absolutely no interest in a Colbert run. The comedian is set to respond to the moms later this afternoon.

None of this matters to Colbert, though, because his audience isn’t the everyday people anymore; it’s the elites in the media. He’s become their personal funny-monkey by promoting himself to the left-wing MSM’s personal and political prejudices.

As I write this, there is nothing on the front page of Politico about Solyndra, Fast and Furious, the under-employed, or the large numbers of those who have lowered the unemployment rate by giving up their search for work, but there are TWO front-page stories about Stephen Colbert’s antics.

Colbert is not engaging in political humor, he’s engaging in partisan politics disguised as humor — and the corrupt MSM is enabling him every step of the way.

Loud, brash and in your face, this collage of film stocks, styles and sensibilities made some critics squeal with delight during its 1994 release. Call that a chance to hop on the hip bandwagon, but looking back it’s clear “Killers” marked the start of Stone’s slow slide toward mediocrity.

“Killers” follows the infamous Mickey and Mallory (Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis) as they morph from amoral killers to media darlings. The two start out as lovebirds eager to taunt and terrorize the innocent, always leaving one person alive to spread their legend. They aren’t the most well thought out criminals, and before long they’re behind bars for their atrocities.

Even violent criminals can pick up celebrity cache if they play the media just right.

“Killers” came of age during the O.J. Simpson case, the Menendez trial and the clown-like antics of Long Island’s own Joey Buttafuoco. So we can forgive Stone for feeling less than charitable about the state of media. But “Killers” is such an over the top affair, so bloated with stylistic excess and Pacino-esque ranting that nothing resonates beyond an overwhelming sense of “ick.”

A media satire by design can’t be done with a sledgehammer approach, at least if that’s the only tool being applied to the screen. Even the best action films have quiet spells, solemn moments when the audience can catch its breath and prepare for the next stunt-filled extravaganza.

“Killers” is all exclamation points and bold type. Attempts to humanize the murderous couple fall hopelessly flat. Can we really feel Mickey and Mallory’s pain just because they both suffered at the hands of abusive parents? Rodney Dangerfield appears in the film’s lone flash of brilliance. He plays Mallory’s lecherous papa, sequences arranged like a sitcom pilot from hell complete with laugh track.

Harrelson transcends the noise long enough to carve something novel out of Mickey’s wicked ways. The actor’s brutish charisma holds the film together, just barely, while Stone asks the rest of his cast to perform as if a pack of firecrackers had just invaded their skivvies. Those intrigued by Lewis’ bad-girl performance should rent the severely underrated “Kalifornia” for a better look at her curious screen presence.

“Killers” began as a screenplay by Quentin Tarantino, the pop culture junkie who later distanced himself from the production. We’re left to wonder what the “Pulp Fiction” auteur might have said differently than Stone, since very little of Tarantino’s patented wordplay made it into the final draft.

Robert Downey Jr. arrives mid-film to personify the soulless media vultures who thrive on tabloid trash. The future “Iron Man” nails the Steve Dunleavy accent – the Aussie reporter from “A Current Affair fame directly influenced Downey’s character. In a film teeming with one dimensional players, Downey’s reporter emerges as even more detestable than the titular “Killers.”

One can easily accuse Stone of glorifying the kind of violence he detests in the media as well as for letting Mickey and Mallory survive with their black souls unscathed.

“Natural Born Killers” arrived on Blu-ray two years ago along with scenes excised to ensure an R-rating. Such a bloated enterprise hardly needed more shock value. What’s left out here is the sense that Stone had something truly original to say other than, “I wish the media didn’t treat the Tonya Harding affair with the same intensity as the first Gulf War.”

It doesn’t take an Oscar-winning filmmaker to remind us of that.

First, mainstream news media outlets take a Romney quote out of context – “I like to fire people” – to gin up manufactured outrage. That meme circulates for a few days, long enough to get on the radar of “Saturday Night Live” writers who can’t find anything funny about a president residing over a stagnant economy.

Why look for potential laughs there, right? It’s not as if sitting presidents haven’t translated into comedy gold for decades.

Next, “SNL” picks up the Romney meme and makes it the Jan. 14 show’s opening sketch. The bit has Romney (Jason Sudeikis) appearing at a Middle American diner and firing everything in site – including the bacon on the menu.

Ha ha.

The joke wouldn’t connect unless dishonest media outlets misused Romney’s actual quote to paint him as a cold, unfeeling bureaucrat who doesn’t blink when it comes time to lay people off.

It’s the kind of theme Obama will use, no doubt, during the presidential campaign. And “SNL” and other late-night hosts will be right there, of course, to keep hammering the message home, no charge.

After all, then-Sen. Barack Obama campaigned in 2008 alongside Greek columns and promised his election would be the moment “when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal …” And let’s not forget the plethora of broken campaign promises, battalions of straw men and class warfare that have come to define the last three years.

Instead, The Onion serves up faux news stories like this:

Obama Openly Asks Nation Why on Earth He Would Want to Serve for Another Term

Yes, the media narrative regarding Obama has officially arrived at a newspaper dedicated to political satire. Liberal humorists would rather protect their own than make us laugh and speak truth to power.

PITTSBURGH—Citing three years of exhausting partisan politics, constant gridlock in Congress, and an overall feeling that the entire nation has “completely lost it,” President Barack Obama openly asked a campaign-rally crowd Tuesday why he’d want to serve another term as president of “this godforsaken country.”

“My fellow Americans, I come to you today to ask, why?” Obama said to 1,200 people gathered inside a gymnasium at Taylor Allderdice High School. “Why can’t our congressional leaders work together to create jobs? Why can’t Wall Street ever be held accountable? And most important, why on God’s green earth would I voluntarily subject myself to this nonsense for another four years?”

Didn’t Obama campaign as a non-partisan healer who would rise above congressional gridlock? And didn’t he enjoy a Democratic Congress for his first two years in office that allowed him to pass virtually anything he pleased?

Now, here come the delusional talking points that could have been uttered by Bill Press or any other reality-challenged liberal pundit.

“I have a pen and some paper right here,” Obama said Wednesday morning at a town hall meeting in Ohio. “Let’s list the pros and cons of being president. Con: There are people out there who literally want to shoot you dead. Con: We live in a country seriously considering a Newt Gingrich White House. Con: You can help 40 million Americans receive health care, sign legislation that regulates a financial system run amok, give the order to kill Osama bin Laden, help topple Muammar Qaddafi’s tyrannical regime without losing the life of one American soldier, end the war in Iraq, repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, stave off a second Great Depression, take out more than 30 top al- Qaeda leaders, and somehow everyone still calls you the next Jimmy Carter.”

And what’s the video link currently at the bottom of the story page: Did the media treat Bachmann unfairly because she’s an insane woman?

Expect much, much more of this as the presidential elections come into sharper focus.

Over and over and over we keep reading about how Hollywood’s holiday box office was some sort of silver lining in an otherwise dark cloud. But once again, the context-challenged entertainment media only tells us half the story. Here’s a sampling:

Box Office Mojo:

Based on studio estimates, the four-day weekend will end up at over $201 million, or up around 10 percent from the same four-day period last year.

DHD:

Let’s party hearty with the end-of-holiday box office for end-of-year 2011. Or let’s not (and say we did.)… [S]ources tell me this final weekend will definitely be up over last year.

Los Angeles Times:

Most films sold more tickets over the New Year’s holiday than the Christmas holiday, with family films benefiting from the biggest bumps. Overall, the weekend was up 10% compared with the same period in 2010.

Cinema Blend:

Sales were up considerably from last weekend’s Christmas holiday and the new year is off to a solid start.

Except…

Between Dec. 16 and Dec. 25 of this year, the following films went into wide release:

Alvin and the Chipminks: Chipwrecked
Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows
Mission : Impossible – Ghost Protocol
The Adventures of Tintin
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
We Bought a Zoo
War Horse
The Darkest Hour

That’s a total of eight big-budget, high profile offerings. However, in 2010, only four high-profile, big-budget films went into wide release during that same time period:

Tron Legacy
Little Fockers
True Grit
Yogi Bear

In other words, in order to get that 10% bump in sales, Hollywood had to invest in twice the amount of product.

For argument’s sake, let’s assume that after production and marketing costs, a mainstream film averages out to a cost of $100 million. If that’s the case, the industry invested $400 million more than they did last year — twice as much — to make 10% more in gross sales. That doesn’t sound like much of a success to me.

From what I can see, only The Wrap deserves credit for not buying or pushing that spin:

Conversely, distribution executives might think twice about celebrating their Christmas-week performances, given that they’re comparing their 2011 Yule haul to a 2010 holiday period that featured only two new wide releases — “Little Fockers” and “True Grit” — doing any significant business.

In fact, even though nearly twice as many movies were released in the run-up before Christmas this year, the market only grew marginally.

Ho, ho, ho …

You can’t fix a problem until you admit you have a problem. Too many in the entertainment media are too invested in the culture wars to look at the motion picture business as a business. They see a rejection of Hollywood as a rejection of their own personal values; they take it personally and therefore don’t want to believe or report it.

This is why we get spin instead of the kind of analysis that tells the real story.

Twice as popular as “Nurse Jackie”

In other words, television is following society, not the other way around. Whatever. Here’s a snip:

Prime-time TV is starting to look like an ad for Ashley Madison, the online dating service for married folks, where the message is, “Life is short. Have an affair.”

To be sure, bed hopping as a plot point is nothing new. In fact, it’s as old as storytelling itself (see: the Bible). But the proliferation of adultery on TV — seemingly occurring far more frequently than in real life — could be the result of a perfect storm of cultural and sociological factors, industry veterans and sociologists say.

Among those factors: Cynicism about marriage is rampant, and about half of all marriages end in divorce, a number that’s remained steady for years. “Since the ’60s and ’70s, we’ve seen a general loosening of mores in this country and a cultural shift away from the core values of marriage, fidelity and monogamy,” said Julie Albright, a sociologist at USC. “People believe marriages don’t work anyway, so seeing affairs on TV kind of serves as a model for how things can and will go bad.”

Marriage has never been less popular. A recent Pew Research Center study found that a record-low 51% of people older than 18 in the U.S. were married in 2010, a precipitous drop from 72% in 1960. If the trend continues, married people will no longer be the majority in a few years. New marriages decreased by a sharp 5% last year, and there are fewer married people in all age groups. The biggest decline has been among 18-to-29-year-olds, from 60% a half-century ago to the current 20%, perhaps illustrating that the younger generation has little faith in getting hitched.

The Journal of Family Psychology said recently that between 20% to 25% of married Americans will stray, though some estimates put that figure as high as 60%. (The research, mind you, depends on the willingness of those participating to come clean.)

Hilariously, the LA Times uses the words “hit” and “popular” to describe these shows and yet never once mentions that you don’t see a whole lot of those shows on this pesky little ratings list. In fact, is there even one?

Because of  the proliferation of the number of cable channels and the subsequent fracturing of the viewing audience, a show like “Nurse Jackie,” which receives fewer than two million viewers, can now be called a hit — I guess. But articles like this one, that avoid context like the plague, are intentionally designed to  make the right-of-center majority feel like they’re in the minority. Facts be damned, the L.A. Times has crafted this nonsense to make us feel outnumbered, like we don’t have a seat at their cool kids’ table where adultery is in and marriage is as old-fashioned as a buggy whip.

Come over to the dark side. Clothing is optional.

Something else the corrupt L.A. Times intentionally refuses to reveal is that most of the “hit” shows they use to back up their argument don’t even pull in as many viewers as the top shows they’re in direct competition with on cable. Moreover, most of the top cable shows actually aren’t about pushing us closer to the sexual free-for-all the left so desires. In fact, many of them are conservative leaning in their cultural portrayals of small business owners, America, and the working class.

You want a real laugh? Cable’s number-two show, “The Closer,” is not only about a female detective willing to do most anything to put scumbags behind bars, but (at least through season five) one of her primary antagonists is a sleazy reporter from — you guessed it – The Los Angeles Times.

Rizzoli and Isles (TNT): 8.44 million
The Closer (TNT): 8.20 million
Royal Pains (USA): 7.154 million
Burn Notice (USA): 7.151 million
Covert Affairs (USA): 6.74 million
Pawn Stars (History): 6.33 million
Jersey Shore (MTV): 6.07 million
Deadliest Catch (Discovery): 5.92 million
White Collar (USA): 5.28 million
American Pickers (History): 4.98 million
In Plain Sight (USA): 4.93 million
Psych (USA): 4.87 million
Memphis Beat (TNT): 4.59 million
Hot in Cleveland (TV Land): 4.27 million
The Glades (A&E): 3.88 million
Pretty Little Liars (ABC Family): 3.25 million
American Chopper: Senior (TLC): 2.78 million
Are We There Yet? (TBS): 2.72 million
Haven (SyFy): 2.51 million
Top Shot (History): 2.47 million

Think about it; “Top Shot,” an openly patriotic show about the beauty of firearms, draws almost twice as many viewers as “Nurse Jackie,” and yet the incredibly insulated and dishonest L.A. Times is panting over how a show watched by less than one half of one percent of the American people represents a part of some new cultural zeitgeist.

To be clear, I don’t oppose storylines involving marital infidelity in television (or movies), but most of those I’ve seen portray adultery as the soul-destroying behavior it is. But that doesn’t change the fact that every point made in this subtitle….

Cheating spouses are prevalent on prime-time TV. Blame society’s changing views on marriage and fidelity, and the shows’ need to push boundaries to succeed.

…is false.

Fact 1: Cheating spouses do not prevail on television — just on the shows the bubbled-up, elitist left watch.

Fact 2: The top shows on cable and broadcast television prove that infidelity and the pushing of boundaries are, in fact, not the keys to success. For if they were, “Nurse Jackie” wouldn’t be getting its nihilistic ass kicked by the gun-loving, America-loving “Top Shot.”

Here’s something else for the L.A. Times to suck on…

Another show they cite to prove their dishonest point is Showtime’s “Homeland,” in which the protagonist is a cheating spouse. The “Homeland” season finale broke ratings records with a whopping 2.03 million viewers.

Well, gasp and egads.

But did you know that ”Sarah Palin’s Alaska” enjoyed more viewers on a bad night? Palin’s bad night also beats another L.A. Times’ example, “Justified.”

Would someone please inform the L.A. Times that wisful thinking and journalism are not the same things.

NOTE: The numbers used in my ratings comparisons are apples-to-apples as far as the number of viewers who watch a new episode the night it premieres.  Because most cable shows are DVR’d and broadcast more than once throughout any given week, more people will eventually see that particular episode, be it “Top Shot” or “Nurse Jackie.”  Those are called “across platform” ratings, but I was only able to find those numbers for some shows, not all.