Puerile Pinch-Hitter: Henican Enough to Make One Long for Short Ellen Ratner?

Readers of my NewsBusters entries know that Ellen Ratner, the short end of the "Long & Short of It" feature at Fox & Friends Weekend, has been a frequent object of my ire, as seen here, here and here.

It's thus saying a mouthful that the puerile performance of pinch-hitter Ellis Henican this morning was almost enough to make one long for the short Ratner. Almost.

Henican took on fellow Newsday columnist Jim Pinkerton, who normally locks horns with Ratner in the segment.

The topic was Iraqi pre-war intelligence. At one point it was noted that Hillary Clinton has posted an item on her web site criticizing the pre-war intelligence provided by the Bush administration and suggesting that if she knew then what she knows now, she might not have supported the war.

Host Julian Phillips, hardly a pro-Bush hack, then hit Henican with this question:

"Didn't [Hillary] also now about intelligence from her husband Bill Clinton when he was in the White House and he was talking about weapons of mass destruction?"

Henican, dropping any semblance of seriousness, responded in an animated and utterly jejune tone:

"Julian, I'm so disappointed by you, bringing up all this old, boring tabloid trashy stuff. We've got important issues to talk about today Julian."

Continued Henican in a cynical snivel: "A bunch of Senators allowed themselves to get suckered in, now they've got weasel out from under it. That's politics, man."

Dare I say, "where is Ellen Ratner now that we need her"? Nah.

Is Fox utterly committed to balancing Pinkerton with the worst of the juvenile left?