Andrew Napolitano, former New Jersey superior court justice (and therefore often called “Judge Napolitano”), has been a legal and constitutional analyst for Fox News for some time. For several years now he’s hosted a nightly program on Fox Business called Freedom Watch, ending each show with a tagline: “Defending freedom, every night of the week.”
Monday night he amended it: “Defending freedom, everybody’s freedom, every chance I get.”
The tagline changed because Freedom Watch is now off the air. Fox pulled it.
Thankfully, Napolitano will still appear on various Fox commentary shows as an on-air consultant. Hence the teeth in those parting words: “every chance I get.”
The show began three years ago as a weekly webcast video. It soon began to air more frequently, 
and in 2010 hit the Fox Business channel — though it should have found a place on the News channel, alongside Hannity and O’Reilly and The Five. Napolitano drove home his philosophy with a series of oft-repeated slogans, including one of my favorites, “Does the government work for us or do we work for the government?”
Napolitano’s straight-forward, enthusiastic and general “good guy” approach made the radicalism of his political beliefs palatable to a wide viewership.
Yes, Freedom Watch was a great show — there is nothing else quite like it on television, though John Stossel’s weekly show remains on Fox Business, and hails from a similar perspective. Both are popular as excerpted on YouTube.
A lot of folks will miss Freedom Watch, but I, for one, will keep watch for Napolitano’s future projects.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
7 replies on “There Goes Da Judge”
Not much gets me depressed, but this news certainly did. You gave a fitting tribute.
Yes he will be missed. Did Fox give anyone a reason for pulling him? HE was never at a loss for items to talk about and his show was totally different than any other show on TV. There are one or two others I can think of that could have been pulled instead.
I agree with both comments. The judge was fantastic as is Stossel but fox is giving in to obama . what a loss
Paul, yours was a very nice tribute to the Judge and Freedom Watch.
A sad and fond adieu, I will miss my daily visit but, like you, will seek him out wherever he goes.
I agree with the analysis the neither Freedom Watch, nor Stossel, ever really belonged on Fox Business. They should have been aired on Fox News which, because of its being dizzy with it present success, will rue the thought of changing its line up. Hopefully they will find room for both on News, perhaps an expansion of The Five to the Six or a weekend spot like Huckabee.
When I see the claim that viewership was only 54,000 I am shocked, and saddened. With the rise of Ron Paul over the last election cycle in find that hard to believe.
I am hopeful that a lack of knowledge of the program’s existence, as opposed to a refusal to consider its thought process and philosophy, was its demise.
If that is so, Andrew Napolitano and John Stossel will eventually find a home.
So was Fox getting pressured to remove him? Was he hitting a little too close to Soros too frequently, like Beck?
As a news channel, FOX is getting less and less interesting.
“…the radicalism of his political beliefs… Huh? Really? Radical???
If Fox continues to give up people like Judge Napolitano and Glen Beck then I guess I will be giving up Fox. When I see the John Stossel
show dropped that will be the red flag for me that Fox has sold out to the left.