My first political memories were watching C-Span, Crossfire, and the McLaughlin Group. With my parents leaning Left politically and my brothers and me leaning Right — and all of us having strong opinions — our dinner table conversations sometimes sounded like these debate shows, but with the civilizing influence of our mother.

I was working for Bob Novak when CNN killed Crossfire. I’m not talking about when CNN took Crossfire off the air, but when they killed the show, by hiring Democratic operatives James Carville and Paul Begala to go against conservative journalists Novak and Tucker Carlson. Ramesh Ponnuru at Bloomberg makes the case today that someone should bring back pre-Begala, pre-Carville, pre-studio audience Crossfire.