Fox Business's 'Bell' Sounds A New Start For Liz Claman

Whatever her achievements, one critic is difficult to please. After Claman covered Barack Obama in Chicago on election night, her mother -- a London-trained theater actress -- wrote her: "You were wonderful . . . for the most part."

"I could be at the mouth of Osama bin Laden's cave and she would say, 'You talked with your hands; don't do that,' " Claman says.

Hubbub Over New Hire

Greg Sargent, a liberal blogger at TalkingPointsMemo.com -- who has taken whacks at The Washington Post on occasion -- kicked up a fuss in the blogosphere over the weekend by announcing that he's leaving that site to blog for . . . The Post.

Sargent has relentlessly defended Hillary Clinton against what he called unfair coverage and attacked the right's "wingnut slime machine." One posting was titled "Washington Post Takes Cues From Drudge, Runs Awful Photo of Hillary's Wrinkles."

The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb, a former John McCain spokesman, wrote over the weekend, in a typical slap: "Sargent is an unrepentant Democratic partisan, which means he should fit in well with the staff at The Post, but also a top-notch reporter."

But it turns out Sargent isn't moving to the paper's Web site, washingtonpost.com. Instead, he is joining a site being launched by The Washington Post Co., according to a person familiar with the site. That person, who asked not to be identified because no official announcement has been made about the site, says Sargent is being tapped as a reporter to write a newsy, non-ideological blog, along with various contributors.

The site, to be called WhoRunsGov, will partly focus on profiles of government decision-makers, the source said. WhoRunsGov is expected to launch during inauguration week.

Precious Real Estate

The New York Times, which recently mortgaged its headquarters, must be in a tighter cash squeeze than anyone realized. Today's front page features a six-column color ad for CBS, stripped across the bottom, the first time in modern history that the paper has sold such prominent space.