Patterico's Pontifications

5/2/2008

UK’s Telegraph Picks Top US Pundits

Filed under: Politics — DRJ @ 6:46 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

It seems a tad strange for a UK newspaper to pick the most influential American political pundits, but the Telegraph picked the Top 50 in today’s edition. Here are the top 10:

1. Karl Rove, Fox News commentator and contributor to Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal.
2. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.
3. Sean Hannity of Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes.
4. Rush Limbaugh.
5. John Harris & Jim VandeHei, founders of Politico.com.
6. Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report.
7. Tim Russert of NBC.
8. Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart.
9. New York Times’ columnist David Brooks.
10. Mark Halperin, founder of ABC’s The Note and currently at Time’s “The Page.”

Here’s a link to the page where you can access numbers 11-50 if you wish.

Some of these selections seem a bit odd to me. What do you think?

— DRJ

11 Responses to “UK’s Telegraph Picks Top US Pundits”

  1. The list doesn’t seem right to me either. But I can’t really say where: I’ve gotten news, views, and information from all of these people at one time or another, with the exeception of Mark Halperin.

    But when it comes right down to it, Rove would come up last on the list, even if there were more names. He just hasn’t been out there as much, for as long, as the others have. But he is damn cogent, isn’t he?

    Jack (d9cbc5)

  2. Rove as the most influential?

    That doesn’t make any sense. He’s been at the game, what, three months?

    Halperin may be the most influential for the inside baseball types.

    For the larger general public, it’s still Limbaugh. Drudge has been coasting but he can pop up at any time.

    And I’d put O’Reilly in the top 10.

    SteveMG (35b679)

  3. Definite wrongness here. A list that doesn’t include this blog is definitely off the mark 🙂

    BTW, is our esteemed host on vacation or just having a really big case to try this week? No post nor peep from him all week.

    kishnevi (7a9e8b)

  4. Hmmph. Any influential punditeering list without Weasel or Beldar on it is pretty bogus.

    Oh, and Pat’s, of course.

    EW1(SG) (84e813)

  5. I think he’s tied up with government work, Kishnevi.

    DRJ (a431ca)

  6. Well, at least they can be considered sane….

    robertl (c1c8af)

  7. Matthews ratings is among the lowest on a cable station which has low ratings. He has been ridiculed for his extreme bias and silly comments. How does he rank ahead of Rush who has 17 MILLION Listeners?

    Dennis D (ae900a)

  8. Well, this ranking was done by Brits, you know.

    Another Drew (8018ee)

  9. I agree with you, #7. There’s no way Matthews could organize and successfully cause something like “Operation Chaos” the way Rush has. In fact, I think Rush belongs in the #1 spot. He has had more continuous influence than any of the others.

    jwarner (0c2175)

  10. #7 perhaps they are contrarian. Dingleberry Olberdork has resurgent ratings on cable compared to Chrissie “I squat to pee” Matthews. Both come across as loud idiots in my view, but maybe the sycophancy to fellow moonbat socialists counts for something?
    Fox should have a show like the View, only with a group like Michelle Malkin, LaShawn Barber and Kirsten Powers and the nominal lib. O’Reilly’s big mouth is hard to take and Jerry Rivers is just intolerable.
    Perhaps Rove gets credit for driving the left insane over at the fever swamps like DU, Kos and HuffPost. His ability to avoid imminent (according to past rumors there) frog marching off to hoosegow has got to be a major downer for the witless twerps.

    madmax333 (484361)

  11. That reads like someone trying to get bloghits, not an actual list of “The most influential US political pundits.”

    “Oooh! Rove always gets attention! We’ll put him as number one– we did say they were influential, not that their *punditry* was what caused the influence!”

    Of course, by that measure, G. Gordon Liddy should’ve been in the top ten…if they weren’t trying to hits.

    Maybe “People who are pundits who have been in the news a lot lately.”

    Foxfier (74f1c8)


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