Jump the shark

When the young Mr. Jon Ralston worked for me, he provided intense inside-baseball political coverage in Nevada. When he went independent and then was purchased by the all-Democrat-all-the-time Las Vegas Sun folks, he changed. Instead of solid equal-opportunity inside-baseball coverage and analysis, he aspired to become a wanna-be political player -- and it translates into nasty coverage of politicians he doesn't like, and softball coverage of politicians he does.

Nothing shows this more than how he's treating Republicans running against Sen. Harry Reid. In that race he can barely refer to key Republicans by their full name. For example, Sue Lowden is derisively referred to as "Snow White" and Danny Tarkanian is "Little Tark." (Both, by the way, beat Reid in all polls. Tarkanian runs neck-and-neck with Reid in Southern Nevada. This astonishing fact rarely gets the mention it deserves in Ralston "analysis." But there's always time to call Republican opponents names.)

In the governor's race, as if Nevada political coverage were something like a junior high school playground, Ralston calls the current Republican governor by the "zero" symbol.

When did Jon Ralston jump the shark from referee to player?