Alan Colmes Leaving "Hannity and Colmes"

Looks like the best show in the last decade for hearing competing views is no more. Somewhat sane lefty Alan Colmes will be leaving the show. From FOX News:

In announcing his decision, Colmes said, “I approached Bill Shine (FNC’s Senior Vice President of Programming) earlier this year about wanting to move on after 12 years to develop new and challenging ways to contribute to the growth of the network. Although it’s bittersweet to leave one of the longest marriages on cable news, I’m proud that both Sean (Hannity) and I remained unharmed after sitting side by side, night after night for so many years.”

Colmes will continue to have a presence on FNC as he will serve as a liberal commentator on a variety of FOX News programming, including Foxnews.com’s The Strategy Room and continue hosting his radio program, The Alan Colmes Show on FOX Talk, a division of FOX News Radio. He will also begin developing a weekend program…

Hannity added, “Not only has Alan been a remarkable co-host, he’s been a great friend which is rare in this industry. I’ll genuinely miss sparring with such a skillful debate partner.”

Alan Colmes is a class act. Horribly misguided, but a class act. He will be missed, and I doubt I will appreciate him nearly as much if he is on his own, without Hannity to beat some sense into him now and again.

Personally, I'd love to see Hannity and Kirsten Powers. Powers is a reasonable liberal, highly intelligent and not bad to look at.

But it looks like FOX is leaning towards Hannity and Hannity, which would be a mistake.

So what will happen to “Hannity & Colmes?” Sean Hannity, the popular conservative commentator, may become the sole host of the program, according to one source close to the network who insisted on anonymity while speaking about private deliberations. Mr. Hannity currently hosts a weekend program, “Hannity’s America,” that may be used as a template for the weekday program. A Fox News spokeswoman said that no decision had been made.

This would be a mistake. Hannity needs a liberal foil to make television work, in my opinion. And he is at his best when challenging liberals. Liberals won't be as likely to show up without another host who will pander to them and make sure they get their talking points out.

FOX needs to think this through, The show can go on. But not without a leftist viewpoint to counter Sean Hannity.
Who would you like to see opposite Sean? Or do you think this can work on a daily basis, following O'Reilly, without a co-host?