My girl, Martha MacCallum has her own show on FOX. yay
After Megyn Kelly and Greta left FOX for NBC and MSNBC respectively, there was a big hole in the evening line up to fill. FOX tagged Tucker Carlson to take over Greta's 7:00 pm slot and when Megyn finally left, they moved him into her old 9:00pm slot. From what I'm hearing, he's killing it in the ratings, doing far better than Megyn who had been killing it against other FOX hosts.
I imagine there's a bit of the old perfect storm at work here. Carlson came in after Trump was elected and into an increasingly hostile news environment towards conservatives/Republicans. Whereas Megyn was more of a centrist with conservative leanings, Carlson is a full on righty and doesn't hesitate to take on liberals and beat them up on his show. In a much more intelligent sounding way than either O'Reilly or knuckle-dragger Hannity can manage. So it's red meat for red state masses at a time when a lot of people are recoiling at the hysterical overreaction of liberals to the new Trump administration.
To fill the empty 7:00pm slot, FOX has created a show -- The First 100 Days about, obviously, Trump's first 100 days in office. You know, that time period when, prior to this administration, news networks sort of sat back and gave the new President some time to formulate their message and direction for the country.
Yeah. That's off now, isn't it?
Anyway, MacCallum's been a favorite of mine for a while. Obviously I think she's gorgeous, but I like her demeanor on air as well. She's intelligent and informed and does a good job in interviews without the combative nature of most political hosts these days.
Prior to his death, my buddy and I used to chat about her appearance on television when she would fill in for Megyn or appear on O'Reilly (though I rarely saw her there since I can't stand that pompous gasbag), and my friend, knowing I liked her would just goof on her mercilessly. His favorite jab was that she didn't know how to apply makeup because there was this dark spot on her forehead. I would point out that was a shadow from her hair, he'd counter, we'd go back and forth . . . it was fun. My boss would be overhearing us and be asking "Who are you talking about?" and we'd just ignore her and keep goofing on one another.
Boy do I miss him :-(
Along those same lines, both of us used to do the same thing for Laurie Dhue, a FOX host in the early 2000's. Tall and blonde and busty and leggy, she was great eye candy on the network:
But God love her, she couldn't read a teleprompter to save her life.
We'd be waiting to get on the clock in the morning or meet at break and just chuckle at whatever she struggled with during the news breaks or whatever for the prior evening. It was all in good fun, but unbeknownst to both of us, Dhue was struggling with alcoholism during her time at FOX. Apparently a pretty severe case of it too, which would explain her problems reading a scrolling text. Impressive that she managed to do as well as she did for all those years.
She's clean and sober now and after a stint at Glenn Beck's Blaze TV, she's started her own media consultant and training firm and is apparently shopping a tell-all book about sexual harassment she suffered from Roger Ailes during her time at FOX.
Amusingly, both Martha MacCallum and Laurie Dhue have similar pedigrees -- both had B.A.'s in political science and both dabbled in the performing arts, something I guess is a good idea if your goal is to be live in front of a camera for a living.
I'm glad Dhue has righted the ship of her life and wish her well as she goes on. I'd be pleased if she didn't join the dog pile on Ailes for no other reason than he's gone and she's moved on with her life. Just let it go and don't give any more energy to that chapter in her life.
And as for Marther (something she joked about one night on air) . . . I just may have to turn my television back on in the evenings and check out the show.
Yeah I know, it's an O'Reilly shirt . . . but it's nice to see her in regular clothes, and the b&w pic . . . well, you know how I am about that :-)
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