Welcome to 201k.com - A Commonwealth Perspective.

201k admits to watching a bit of CNN, especially NewsNight with Aaron Brown--who is sometimes criticized for trying to elevate discussion above the third-grade level--and Paula Zahn, who we've found occasionally challenges both Republicans and Democrats rather than just the Democrats.

However, Zahn's show is a different animal when hosted by CNN anchor Daryn Kagan.

On each occasion that Kagan has guest-hosted Paula Zahn Now she has made our teeth ring with her snarky attitude and, frankly, biased approach.

Partisan paranoia, you say? The transcripts don't lie. In fact, given that transcripts don't adequately describe Kagan's smirky demeanor, they actually do her more justice than she deserves.

Examples abound, but last night's show will do fine. Here she is talking to Crossfire's James Carville:

DARYN KAGAN: Let's focus on John Kerry, the front-runner. As you see it today, how strong of a candidate is he across the country for a national election?

CARVILLE: Well, he's won 14 out of 16 primaries. And he's leading President Bush in all of the polls. But John Edwards

KAGAN: Well, that goes back and forth, not all of them. Some days, Bush is.

Devils's advocate, you say. There's no Republican so she has to play the roll, you say.

CARVILLE: OK. Very few that he doesn't lead, OK?

KAGAN: OK.

CARVILLE: And any instance, any challenger that's in this kind of shape right now, it portends pretty good for the fall. So -- but the truth of that matter is, I guess, if Edwards came up and won a couple of primaries, he does quite well against Bush also. I don't think it takes very much to beat President Bush right now.

KAGAN: Really?

You will have to look for a video to hear how sarcastically she said the word "really".

KAGAN: Well, you're very -- you're optimistic about that.

Devils's advocate, you say. There's no Republican so she has to play the roll, you say.

KAGAN: Republicans will point out, Democrats, oh, Democrats are great at whining, great at talking about what's wrong, but they're not good at putting out a vision for what they see.

Devils's advocate, you say. There's no Republican so she has to play the roll, you say.

CARVILLE: I have no idea what they're talking about. Under Bill Clinton, we had peace and prosperity. I don't know which one of the two so offended them. And we had a $5.6 trillion budget surplus when he left office.

They have offered us nothing on what to do to control rising health care costs. So they're a whole bunch of areas out there that Democrats can offer not just a different alternative and vision, but just talking about it would be more than this administration is doing.

KAGAN: Well, and we'll see how they do. And we gave you the free ride there because it is a Democratic primary tonight.

See, she was merely playing devil's advocate because there was no Republican to counter Carville. She even felt the need to say so. Well, at least there was a balanced approach--Carville's and hers.

KAGAN: James Carville, thank you.

CARVILLE: You bet.

KAGAN: We decided a free ride wasn't the best idea. We wanted to get a Republican view of tonight's primary.

Surprise! Before half a second had passed, ta-da, a Republican!

Well, no matter--she's the devil's advocate. She'll reverse gears and challenge the GOP guy as directly as she did Carville. You know, all that "Democrats are great at whining" stuff.

KAGAN: For that, we bring on Rick Graber. He is chairman of the Republican Party in Wisconsin. He speaks tonight for the Bush-Cheney campaign. And he joins us from Milwaukee. I'm sure you were able to hear James Carville there talk about -- become, he doesn't care which Democrat. He thinks any Democrat could beat George Bush in 2004. I imagine you see it differently, sir.

GRABER: Oh, we absolutely do.

James obviously hasn't spent a whole lot of time in the state of Wisconsin lately. We have a very, very united party that believes very strongly in what this president is doing to make this a safer world, what he's doing to improve the economy. He inherited a very difficult economy from the Clinton administration, and we're seeing slowly but surely jobs are coming back. The economy is improving. People are getting back to work. We feel very, very good about our chances this fall.

Jobs are coming back? Oh boy, here is comes! Daryn Kagan, devil's advocate, is going to let this guy have it now. Hee-hee, we can't wait!

KAGAN: Well, and let me ask you specifically about Wisconsin. It's so interesting, went back and looked it up. In 2000, if your state had been any closer, it would have been Florida, two-tenths of one percentage point going, though, to Al Gore, not to George Bush. In that time, your state has lost a number of jobs. Do you think, in 2004, are you confident it will tilt the other way for the Bush-Cheney ticket?

Um...wait a sec..that wasn't...wait...she just...

GRABER: ...we look forward to the opportunity to compare the president's record with John Kerry's record, which -- he is the presumptive nominee. It's a record that's very confusing to us.

You look at where he was on the war against Iraq, where he was on the Patriot Act, where he was on the No Child Left Behind legislation, and now see what he's talking about on the campaign trail, and it's two different worlds. People in Wisconsin like straight shooters.

Ok, NOW she's going to let loose. He just directly criticized John Kerry using GOP talking points, with no Democrat there to rebutt. She hates that--just look at what she said to Carville. Here we go...

KAGAN: Very interesting that you're bringing up John Kerry as if he is the presumptive nominee. What do you think would be better for the Republicans at this point, for the Democrats to wrap it up, so that John Kerry is the true nominee, then you can zero in, target him, and make it a one-on-one race, or would it be better to have this go on and on, let the Democrats spend some of their cash, and deplete those resources?

What "would be better for the Republicans at this point"?? That's what she asked? That's her response to his unchallenged partisan shots at Kerry? What happened to the devil's advocate? Why, if we didn't know better we'd think the GOP got some kind of unfair advantage from Daryn Kagan. Carville gets the devil's advocate routine, but Graber gets "advise and consent"? Hard to see how it could have been worse.

KAGAN: Oh, we have time for more questions.

Oh for the love of...

GRABER: Sure.

KAGAN: What are you going to look for with the results for tonight? It is different in that it's an open primary. Anybody can step up and vote. So what kind of results will give you the kind of information you're looking for?

GRABER: I don't think you're going to see extreme amounts of Republican switch over. Again, the people feel passionately about the president.

I expect Republicans went to the polls today and voted for George Bush, even though he was the only candidate on the ballot for Republicans today. Beyond that, we're going to be looking at local elections. We'll certainly be looking at what the margin of victory is for Senator Kerry, if, in fact, that's how it turns out. But we're really getting ready for the fall. That's what our focus is right now.

KAGAN: Thank you. Appreciate you joining us tonight.

For the record on this last point, a huge number of Republicans turned out to vote in the Democratic primary. According to CNN's own exit polls--which Kagan undoubtedly knew about, because within moments she and Wolf Blitzer would begin trading talking points about them in anticipation of the 9pm poll closings--a full 10 percent of voters in the Democratic primary were Republicans, and the vast majority of them voted against John Kerry.

Let us repeat that Daryn Kagan knew that by this point. Yet she asked Wisconsin's GOP chief the bizarre question, "what kind of results will give you the kind of information you're looking for?"

The question obviously should have been: "Given that this is an open primary, what effect do you think the votes of Republicans and Independents will have on the result, and what will it mean?" Right? But instead, after hob-nobbing with him for five minutes, she asked whether the results will give him the information he was looking for. What kind of question is that?

Memo to Paula Zahn: take as many days off as you want, but we're not watching if Daryn Kagan sits in. Get someone who can at least pretend to be unbiased.