Compounding the Idiocy: CNN Looking to Hire Couric?

Already facing disaster with the ill-fated Eliot Spitzer fiasco, the knuckleheads at CNN may have a master stroke at the ready: Hiring the low-rated Katie Couric at some ungodly bloated salary.

Friends of Katie Couric are saying the chances of her remaining at CBS are getting slimmer.

CNN appears especially eager to sign Couric now that the new show starring ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer is off to a stumbling start.

Jeff Bewkes, the CEO of CNN's parent company, Time Warner, yesterday said that CNN has the money "to pay for some of the biggest talent in TV news" -- just when CBS was saying that the era of the big-salary anchor is ending.

"The Katie Couric deal will be the last big deal of that kind ever done," Les Moonves, the head of CBS, said this week. "Those days are over."

Couric makes a reported $16 million a year, tops among the three network news anchors -- but her contract ends in May.

"People are getting the news elsewhere," Moonves said. "When there were only three networks, you did have that public service component, where we were informing America. Now, there is nothing that Katie Couric is saying that everybody doesn't know already."

Exactly. And at $16 million per, she's probably the most overpaid person in recorded history With business decisions like this it's a wonder any executives at the networks and cable outlets (save for FNC) still have jobs. Granted, it's not a stretch to think Couric could do better than Spitzer, but she'd never compete against O'Reilly. Even the MSNBC clown on at that time would likely fare better.