Man CNN has really been letting me down lately. You have all the coverage of Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears as if its actual news and a Web site growing with articles filled with nothing more than pure speculation.

The latest is from “CNN Political Analyst” Bill Scheider who speculates that Al Gore could use his Oscar speech to start his presidency. Which he could do. He could also use the speech to get up and say he was “wrong about this whole global warming thing” and then take a fruity drink in his hand and toss up a sombrero and start making out with Tipper like he did in 2000. the liklihood of both? About equal.

Gore has said repeatedly he won’t run. Will he make a liar of himself? Who knows, he might, wouldn’t be the first time someone in politics has lied repeatedly. At this moment though there is no evidence. Do you have any evidence Mr. Schneider?

“There’s even some speculation that he would use his Oscar as the occasion to announce that he’s running,” Martin Kaplan, director of the University of Southern California’s Norman Lear Center, told CNN. “Imagine that: a billion people worldwide! Take that Jay Leno, as an announcement venue!”

Ugh Oh, doesn’t like like evidence to me. Sounds like someone in the entertainment industry hyping some hype he heard. Not good, not good at all. Mr. Schneider, lets take a look at what the second source of your story is. What does Lawrence Bender, the films producer who would also be up there on stage winning the award:

“It’s electrifying, not politically, because is Al Gore going to run or not going to run. There’s nothing going to happen like that.”

Oy, doesn’t really help the case out. You have a speculator saying “it COULD happen” and the films producer saying “no”.

So basically Bill Schneider wrote an article with absolutely no information in it that simply speculates on some gossip going around Hollywood and the Internet. Job well done and in retrospect there was some information in the article. We learned that a) the film is up for an Oscar b) one of the main (and the only credible source of the two) sources for the story doesn’t believe it will happen and c) Schneider even goes out of his way to make a bad joke at the end of the article where he reveals the movie is also up for best song. More information!