NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about the CNBC debate fallout. I know it's been done to death -- really, it's like everyone in the press turned into me for a few days -- but I add a little historical perspective as well as some comic cameos from the likes of Accuracy in Media and the always-fartworthy Jonah G.

UPDATE. GOP apparatchik Ben Ginsberg has some proposed rules for the media to follow if they want to be granted GOP debates. I don't find the much-maligned temperature requirements so bad -- talk show hosts get cold studios, why shouldn't these guys? -- but there are some howlers:

The campaigns’ will use the manner in which your debate(s) are run (and changes you say you will make from your past debates), the quality and fairness of your moderators’ questions, their enforcement of the rules and their ability to achieve parity in distribution and quality of questions and time among the candidates to evaluate whether the candidates wish to participate in your future debates.

OOoooh, get her! The fringe types affect to consider Ginsberg a RINO pudding and the deal an establishment scam and sellout. But courage! A new report suggests they may get their way and fulfill my fantasy of a debate cycle that totally circumvents the MSM:

Glenn Beck’s website has a suggestion for who would be the best choice to moderate an upcoming Republican debate: Glenn Beck. 

TheBlaze reported that an official associated with one of the Republican presidential campaigns claims that Glenn Beck’s name is being considered as a moderator for one of the upcoming Republican debates. The website did not name the source...

TheBlaze writes that at least three presidential campaigns would support Beck as a moderator — Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Jim Gilmore. It goes on to say that he is liked both “in and out of the Tea Party,” and certainly at his own website.

It may be that Beck and the RNC would try to package and peddle this dog-and-pony show to whatever network is craven enough to accept it, but let us hold out hope that they'll just run it via streaming video and declare victory over the Lame Stream Media. Can't wait to see the reaction among their geriatric base! "I tried to watch the Republican debate but I wound up buying 30 ounces of gold!"