An earlier version of this column inadvertently omitted the quotation by Lawrence O’Donnell.

Picture a football game where the reporters and commentators, bored by the feckless proceedings on the field, suddenly poured out of the press box and took over the game.

In politics, it seems as if the media is intent on not just keeping score but also calling plays.

Consider that a popular political movement started on one cable network (Rick Santelli’s tea party moment on CNBC) and enabled by another (Fox News all but handed out lanterns and pitchforks) produced a number of victorious primary candidates, including the improbable Christine O’Donnell in the Delaware Republican primary for United States Senate. A former aide to the candidate was quoted in Politico as saying that Ms. O’Donnell had hoped that her political endeavors would yield a television contract.

In New York, Carl Paladino, the victor in the Republican gubernatorial primary, recalled another television personality, the fictional Howard Beale from “Network,” at his victory party, saying, “New Yorkers are as mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!” One of the people commenting on all these events was the soon-to-be CNN host Eliot Spitzer, the former governor of New York, yet another reminder that the looking glass goes both ways.

Media and entertainment figures have always been part of politics as players and occasionally, candidates, but they are increasingly taking off the studio mikes and grabbing the megaphone.