Cartoon of a politician!

The news every night is not just about the channels and the various anchors. It's also about the guests on the various shows. There are some who make for great news television, but there are many who are outrageous and an apology in comparison to some top-grade leaders of their political parties.

In fact every time I see a nutty neta on telly, I recall the Havells wire ad where the kid asks the father: koi aur cartoon dekhein? The politician in that commercial was of course making a speech, and not part of a TV discussion.

As a part of Noose Night, once in a while I will turn the spotlight on some of who could well be called cartoons by the kid in that ad. Let's look at who I love to hate from the ruling UPA alliance. Tehseen Poonawalla would've counted as one, but then he's officially just an analyst, though he's known to be close to tainted MP Suresh Kalmadi. The guest coordinators are to blame for having Poonawalla on their shows. He's got no view at all.

But the man who I think does great disservice to his party is Sanjay Jha. It was okay for us to have him talk on cricket (okay, okay, it wasn't cool to have him on cricket too!), but couldn't the Congress have found anyone better to defend itself on television debates? Thankfully for the party, the BJP also puts up a Meenakshi Lekhi who is just a few fractional notches less awful.

The two were at their horriblest with Nidhi Razdan on NDTV 24x7 last evening on a debate on whether Defence Minister AK Antony should also be quitting after naval chief Admiral DK Joshi's resignation on Wednesday in the wake of the submarine mishap.

I hate the way Arnab Goswami interrupts his guests when he is not in agreement with them, but not so with Sanjay Jha. He deserves him.

PS: It would've been interesting to see how Sahara Samay treated the news on Subrata Roy's mixed exchanges with the Supreme Court. Slipped my mind to track it, but we haven't heard the last on that, have we?

Pradyuman Maheshwari is a senior journalist and editor. When he's not chasing news, he's watching it. Twitter: @pmahesh E: noose@pman.in