C-SPAN's new Sunday night book program, After Words on C-SPAN2, is not off to an auspicious start. The program's format is a different author and different guest interviewer each week. Tonight, AEI's Norm Ornstein is fluffing serial adulterer (and fellow AEI fellow) Newt Gingrich, who remains as much as dolt as when he was run out of office. Next week, the author is Howard Friel, who blasts the New York Times' foreign policy/war coverage from the left, and the interviewer is Ken Adelman.

That's Ken "Cakewalk" Adelman.

The Friel/Adelman program (which is being promoed on the channel as a "debate") might be the more interesting format; it couldn't be worse than the Gingrich infomercial. But if you're going to do an adversarial program for a war critic, why give Newt a back seat blowjob? Leave the whoring to Pumpkinhead Russert, or give up the pretense of balance.