The old saying is that if something happens three times, it is good enough for the Times to call it a trend. I think we can now call the “showing the empty chair to shame the guest who bailed on you” situation a trend in cable news.
Back in March MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell interviewed an empty chair for a whole segment after George Zimmerman (the man accused of killing Trayvon Martin) bailed, then later in the week Thomas Roberts was slated to interview the National Organization for Marriage’s Maggie Gallagher, but when she didn’t appear to show, he showed an empty chair during the segment (in that case it was a misunderstanding).
The latest guest to bail is Senate candidate Todd Akin, and the show he bailed on was CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight.” Morgan responded by saying that Akin was “what we would call in Britain, a gutless little twerp.”
WATCH: