There's always FOX, Tucker!

CNN made a move for civil debate today when they offered Tucker Carlson, "the opportunity to pursue other ventures", sending the bow tied conservative commentator off on a job search.

Carlson, who seemed to specialize in high pitched and occassinally nasty sparring of late, found himself at the blunt end of a Jon Stewart salvo recently when Stewart appeared on the CNN program Crossfire. While Tucker exits stage uh right, I guess, his program Crossfire will apparently be dropped altogether, allowing the remaining contributers to to become a calmer more substantive part of CNN's brand. The plan apparently is to keep the three remaining personalities, but give them punditry duties without the Crossfire banner.

Right winger Bob Novak and left leaning Paul Begala and James Carville will still offer up their view of the political scene, though they'll be doing in a less controversial and decibel reduced format.

Crossfire of course is one of the long running fixtures of the early CNN era, probably reaching its zenith of bombastic overdrive when Pat Buchanan and Michael Kinsley used to tee off at each other.

While the folks at FOX may like their volume, it appears that CNN is aiming for more insightful content. For Canadians that are going to miss the noise, hang in there, our ever popular CRTC babysitters are apparently letting you have FOX News very shortly. Tucker was never a shy guy about taking his shots at Canada (whether he had the facts correct to back him up or not), so most likely a spot at FOX would be right up his resume. Though there are reports that he may land at MSNBC, a network he apparently has been in discussion with for a few months now.

And if all else fails Tucker, I hear Al Jazerra (soon to be available in Canada as well) is hiring too, so the options are endless!