GUARANTEED NOT TO SPLIT

In this corner, the New Yorker music pages now boast Sasha Frere-Jones, Gary Giddins, and Alex Ross. In the other corner, David Denby never got Charlie Kaufman's ADAPTATION. But he's an obvious target. Here's Nancy Franklin in last week's New Yorker (courtesy of Greg.org's ongoing archive), arguing for the further propping up of Dan Rather:

Rather, Brokaw, and Peter Jennings are tops in their field; they go to the best parties and know everybody who's anybody; and they know a lot about the world. Still, they have to wake up every day and prove that they are not -- to use the word that invariably crops up when the traditional network-news format is batted around -- dinosaurs. Polls and ratings figures show that young people are not developing the warm, fuzzy feelings toward anchors that their elders supposedly have, and the networks have no idea whether what loyalty does exist will carry into the coming years once all three of the current anchors are gone. At the moment, CBS needs Rather. He is the face of the network, and if his face were suddenly to be absent -- if his face were fired, that is -- the CBS eye would look like a black hole, and you'd hear the wind whistling through the void. And then you'd turn the channel...

So we're supposed to trust these guys because "they go to the best parties," and presumably they don't speak to us directly -- in antiquated New Yorker-via-Kael-style m-dash asides -- in sentences we don't have to fight through like thickets of brush. If Rather is keeping CBS standing -- and what's one more m-dash to make the point -- the network has more trouble than the record industry. Franklin's is the worst excuse I've heard for the guy in the 20 years he's been hanging on by his fingernails -- and I'm not even gonna break up this sentence with a third m-dash. (Hasn't she ever heard of Harry Shearer?) That he's even a rumor anymore is for most people to turn the channel. Best thing CBS could do is hire a journalist to sit at that desk and start steering. Takes a guy like Rather to make Brokaw look like a hero for stepping down. Note to David Remnick: we want TOM CARSON! [Bonus points for anyone who can identify the source of this headline.]