No, it's quite not the format of their political agenda they're changing, but Fox made a big announcement today that may bolster its legitimacy among critics. Shepard Smith, long the anchor of the 7 o'clock hour and the only true hard-newsman at the station, is taking on an expanded role.

It's a strange-sounding arrangement, but it may give Smith a greater degree of editorial freedom (not that he's ever seemed concerned with being on message), essentially letting him run a news channel within Fox's network. His title is Managing Editor of a new "breaking news division." He'll keep his 3pm hour, abandon the anchor desk of the 7pm, but have the ability to break into regular programming at any time throughout the day to report any story he wants.

President Obama was in the Capitol Building pleading his Syrian case to a bipartisan group of Senators. Outside, a Republican Congressman led a crowd of hundreds as they chanted "No! No! No!" at the Capitol walls. But the crowd wasn't upset about Syria, and the Congressman wasn't afraid what might happen if the US stumbled into another middle eastern civil war. He was afraid of what's already happening to America... thanks to Obamacare.

I recently moved to a new apartment in Brooklyn. In the basement of the building, next to the elevator, there is a mysterious and remarkable book case. I don’t know who curates this book case, or if it’s crowd-sourced from a bunch of literary geniuses that happen to live in my building, but the selection is like a revisionist take on a Great Books syllabus.

I picked up a gray, serious-looking book called The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The back cover, instead of the usual blurbs and puffery, has this:

“For years I have with reluctant heart withheld from publication this already completed book: my obligation to those still living outweighed my obligation to the dead. But now that State Security has seized the book anyway, I have no alternative but to publish it immediately” - The author

In Thursday’s speech on “The Future of Our Fight Against Terrorism” President Obama briefly mentioned “a recent example of the challenges involved in striking the right balance between our security and our open society.”

That example was the Department of Justice secretly subpoenaing two months of phone records from hundreds of Associated Press journalists during an investigation of intelligence leaks. The DOJ also monitored the phone calls, emails and physical movements of Fox News reporter James Rosen during a similar investigation into a 2009 leak. They’ve since accused (but not charged) Rosen of breaking the law by asking government officials for classified information.