Back in the heyday of spiritualism, mediums had to have some real skills. They had to be able to conjure things out of apparently thin air, they had to make tables and chairs move without apparent aid and they had to be master manipulators of the human mind if they wanted to convince anyone that they were really talking to the dead. Some of them were so good that Harry Houdini made it his mission to detect and expose their tricks. He did such a good job of that that spiritualism went into a funk for a few decades. Seance parties went out of vogue.

Nowadays, spiritualism is back but the skills are gone. All today’s mediums really have to do is utter vague advice about “living your life” from “handsome” stiffs that never offer a shred of proof that they’re actually visiting from beyond. Mediums have dumbed spiritualist con artistry down to a fast-food version of its former self. That’s the downside.

The upside is that they need less staging and fewer props and they’re always available for a TV appearance on a slow news day. This morning on Fox & Friends was evidently a very slow news day.

The tabloidization of cable news is now complete.

Update: This is too good to leave in the comments.