CJR thinks he deserves one for appearing on HBO’s “K Street,” and promoing it on his CNN show.
Howard Kurtz, who already wears a somewhat precariously balanced second hat as host of CNN’s Reliable Sources, recently added to his millinery wardrobe. In a September 15 online column on the bedazzling blend of political fact and fantasy in K Street, the HBO reality show starring the husband-and-wife lobbying team of James Carville and Mary Matalin, Kurtz disarmingly observed, “K Street is getting a huge amount of publicity from the Beltway buzz types. And I just fell into that trap, didn’t I?” Six days later, he made a cameo appearance on the show, playing himself as a journalist who rejects the importuning of an actor playing a lobbyist. (“I try to look at all sides of an issue,” the journalist tells the man he calls a shill. “I am not going to carry your water on this.”) On the day that episode aired, viewers of Kurtz’s Reliable Sources were given a “sneak peek at my very own acting debut thanks to a much-hyped new HBO series about the way Washington works.” Indeed.
I’m not sure what Howie’s crime is, beyond being annoying. Heck, if that were against the law the whole town’d have to shut down.