Best Cable TV Hopeful

Apologists for George W. Bush have a handy, euphemistic excuse for the mush the president makes whenever his crucifix-wielding aides prod him to make sounds with his mouth: See, he's just folksy. Somehow that works for him; people eat it up. He's a millionaire oilman who once owned a Major League Baseball team, but really he's just an aw-shucks type of guy. It's similar with WDAF Channel 4 reporter Steve Shaw, whose straight-talk approach to on-the-scene interviews tends to come off as contrived, sensational and even a bit nonsensical at times -- but never under-ambitious. In fact, if you listen closely enough, you can almost hear Shaw's career inspiration for such entertaining journalism: fair and balanced ... fair and balanced ... fair and balanced ...O'Reilly!