Out of the Crossfire

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A few months ago, I was watching CNN's Crossfire and saw Michael Kinsley do his regular sign-off. After some feral character had snarled into the screen and said, "From the right, I'm so-and-so," Kinsley picked up the cue and said, "From the left, from the right, from wherever, I'm Mike Kinsley." I knew then that he had had enough. And I knew anyway, because Kinsley is an honest person, that he had always felt like a phony having to say "From the left." The awkwardness felt by him was never quite a match for the impatience felt by many viewers, who had to watch authentic rightists like Pat Buchanan and Robert Novak matched against herbivores and centrists from the Rolodex of consensus. (In the early days of the show it was even worse. Tom Braden, C.I.A. man and valet to the Establishment, had to mouth the words "From the left" every night with his fingers crossed under the desk. To debate with the reactionaries in those days was to be …