The People Aren't Listening

If I were Karl Rove, I'd be a little worried about this:

Data from Nielsen Media Research released Tuesday showed that a one-hour interview with President Bush on Fox came dead last in the hour among the six major broadcast television networks in both total viewers and audiences aged 18 to 49.

"That is a sorry state of affairs," said Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. "I think most people, when they heard that the interview was going to happen, just assumed they weren't going to hear anything new that they hadn't already heard."

The Bush interview trailed an episode of UPN's comedy "The Parkers" and the series premiere of the comedy "Eve," starring the singer of the same name.

I think Thompson is probably right. We've all heard the rhetoric, and I think at this point people either believe it or they don't. Words are not going to be enough to revive the flagging poll numbers now.