TV Press Tour Update: Fox news - Karl Rove won't speak to Congress, but he will chat with TV critics

Karl Rove mimes shoving the Constitution somewhere where the sun don't shine.

Today, the Television Critics Association's summer press tour ratchets interest up a notch or two, as the broadcast networks begin trotting out their ponies and dogs.

First up: Fox. Entertainment president Kevin O'Reilly will be the first to get grilled on the fallout of the writers strike and the possibility of an actors strike, and there'll be a press conference with J.J. Abrams and the stars of the fall's hottest show, "Fringe," which was screened last night for critics staying at the Beverly Hills hotel serving as Ground Zero for this year's tour. (Which means tough luck for us locals, but I cheated and found a fuzzy bootleg of the pilot online, accented with the bonus of Japanese subtitles. As advance word had it, it's pretty compelling, and has a great shot of a victim of a bizarre virus that claims the passengers of a commercial airline whose jaw just simply drops from his skull. It's basically "The X-Files" for a new generation of paranoiacs, albeit very well done.)

But the biggest news today will come when Fox News offers up its presentation of Election 2008 coverage, and divulges what new slanders it has cooked up to volley in Barack Obama's direction, after branding him a terrorist, advocating killing him and suggesting his wife is merely his "baby mama." Among those scheduled to appear are Karl Rove, who has joined Fox News as a "contributor" or "analyst" or "propagandist," whatever the channel's calling them these days.

Those who have been lamenting the diminished state of print TV-criticism these days need look no further than this panel for refutation: Last week, Rove ignored a Congressional subpoena to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, and yet, he's deigning to answer questions from the august body of America's TV journalists. If that's not clout, what is? (Alas, Mr. Rove will not be under oath when he answers our queries.)

Still, the session should be entertaining for its self-righteous-outrage/amoral-indifference-and-blasé-dismissiveness quotient. If Paul Thomas Anderson were to make a movie about this press conference, it'd probably be titled, "There Will Be Aneurysms."

So join us later, already.