Tierney now heads the Inky. Great.

Brian Tierney, left, new chief executive of The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News, and publisher Joe Natoli announce the completed purchase of the Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, Philly.com and related media properties last Thursday.

Pardon me if I'm not jumping up and down with enthusiasm. I have a personal dislike for Tierney, a conservative with a strong partisan streak. I recall with laughter when Tierney headed the mayoral campaign of Sam Katz vs. John F. Street for Philadelphia mayor. It was clear pretty early on in the evening that Katz was going down to defeat, but Tierney and Katz waited to concede until after the 11 p.m. newscasts were over. Petty and amateur, guys. He was asked why they waited, and he said into news cameras, with a guilty look on his face, that his cell phone hadn't rang all night. Uh huh. Hey, even Gore was a good sport in the end after he had an election stolen from him.

I also stopped watching the Comcast election updates, because every election they would have Tierney on, giving us his conservative verbal diarrhea. I always wondered aloud what qualified him to be on there? Answer - his money and prominence in the city. Big deal. Every bit as stupid as having Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell on Post-Game Live. How is Rendell qualified to give us analysis on football games? And what's more, who cares what he thinks? I wonder if I can be on Post-Game Live? Who's next? (And I love Rendell, by the way, but I call it as I see it.) Who the hell is making programming decisions at Comcast?

There are two good things about Tierney being CEO of the Inky and Daily News. I probably won't have to watch him on the Comcast election shows any longer, because as a journalist he's not supposed to reveal his views or talk in a politically biased way (but his conservative politics are the worst kept secret in the city).

The second good thing? To be fair, it's good having a local company owning both papers. He's got a lot of work ahead, including impending labor strife, but if he makes it throught that, he could do some good for the paper. I do wonder if the Inky will become another Washington Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, or Pittsburgh Post Gazette (Read: Conservative Rag). He claims he won't interfere with editorial content, but I'll believe it when I see it. Let's revisit this in a year.