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Let's say you're both politically interested and also a moderate alcoholic. And so, while of course you're interested in yesterday's election returns, you're also not interested enough to give up happy hour with some friends at the neighborhood bar. (It's an off year, you know who'll win NYC mayor, and certainly New Jersey and Virginia governors, while important races, aren't going to keep you home and sober.) So you go out for a while, and you get home at, say, around 10:15. At which point you turn on NY1 to confirm that Bloomberg has, of course, won. He has. And then you want to learn about the other two big contests, the two gubernatorial races, which, because they're on the other side of the Hudson, you don't expect Roma Torre to tell you about.

So you switch to CNN. On which Anderson Cooper seems to be visiting Africa — impassionedly visiting Africa — with Jack Hanna of the Columbus Zoo, formerly best known as Carson's go-to animal guy on nights Joan Embry was otherwise occupied. [UPDATE: Um, that was Jim Fowler. Hanna was Letterman's monkey boy. Sorry.] No U.S. political news there.

So you switch to MSNBC. On which Joe Scarborough is yelling at someone unrecognizable about something inscrutable. Nothing you can comprehend there.

So you switch, grudgingly to Fox News. On which Greta van Susteren is, naturally, talking to someone about Natalee Halloway.

And you remember: This is why cable news sucks.

National News [NYT]