A New Mexico Gem: Arthur Alpert (and Ruminations on The Line)

Have you been reading Arthur Alpert's (right) pieces on the New Mexico Independent each Friday? I have. Check out this week's post, which considers Pete Domenici's newfound admiration for CAFE standards and suggests how Pete might share his experience.

As Alpert's NMI bio says:

Once upon a time, Arthur Alpert was a newspaperman (N.Y. World-Telegram & Sun), TV producer-writer-host (news, documentaries), magazine contributor (New Republic, Washington Monthly) and journalism teacher. In New Mexico, he was news director at KGGM-TV, editor of Prime Time monthly and columnist for the Albuquerque Tribune.

I was reminded just how witty, informed and articulate Alpert is during his recent appearance as a guest on The Line panel on KNME's New Mexico In Focus, which airs every Friday night at 7:00 PM and repeats at 6:00 AM on Sundays. Mary Ellen and I were bravo-ing out loud as Alpert calmly eviscerated some of the more fact-less and clue-less pronouncements of regular panelists Jim Scarantino, who often claims to be an independent, and Scott Darnell, a paid NM GOP operative. Gumption!

Let's hope the show's producer, Kevin McDonald, and The Line's host, Gene Grant, invite Alpert back soon and often to provide some much-needed balance and heft to the show. UNM Law School Prof. Margaret Montoya, a regular panelist, does a bang-up job for the liberal side of the spectrum -- but it's often hard to counteract the one-two punch of Scarantino and Darnell if the guest panelist is reticent to join in the fray or trends to the right.

By the way, Scott Darnell will be departing The Line panel shortly to attend Harvard's JFK School of Government -- rather ironic, that -- and I wonder who will be chosen to take his place. Let's hope that if it's another professional paid by the Repubs to hawk their talking points, someone with a similar professional profile from the Dem side will be included on the panel regularly to offset that slant.

Of course my real hope is that Darnell will be replaced with someone whose positions are less lock step and whose thinking is more nuanced and unpredictable than Scott's has been. I think the show needs less rigid ideology and more spontaneity in Darnell's successor, if you know what I mean.

Thankfully, Scarantino wanders a bit on the ideology scale on some issues, although his oft-expressed, uncritical love for all things Pete can be tiresome -- at least to me. And his penchant to bring up polygamy every time the topic of gay marriage or domestic partnerships arises gets on my nerves. Hey, we all have our pet rants. Jim is Jim and he can be smart and funny if the topic is right. But he's like a broken record on Domenici and the environment, and he usually offers few facts or cites to back up his arguments.

Don't get me wrong. I think Kevin McDonald, David Alire Garcia, Gene Grant and everyone else involved with New Mexico In Focus does an excellent job of bringing local issues into, well, focus. I just think the show could benefit from some tweaking to make the panel segment more provocative and balanced.

Do you watch The Line on New Mexico in Focus? What do you think?

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