How desperate is CNN for viewers — any viewers? Last week we dealt with their "HAPPENING NOW: DEPARTMENT OF JIHAD?" chyrons (and the subsequent apologies). And this week, they’ve announced that they’re hiring Erick Erickson, editor of right-wing blog RedState.org, as a commentator on their new show ‘John King, USA.’ The punchline? John King’s new show is being hailed as a departure from opinion journalism and a bold return to ‘straight news.’ FAIR.org has a roundup of Erickson’s greatest hits that’s a wonder to behold — from saying that Obama won the Nobel Prize due to affirmative action, to telling "ugly feminazis" to "get back in the kitchen," to equating homosexuality with pedophilia, to commemorating Supreme Court Justice David Souter’s retirement by calling him a "goat-fucking child molester," this guy’s got something for everyone and then some! But their list neglects to mention Erickson’s habit of encouraging his readers to mail ‘clever’ gifts to selected legislators, a tactic that blurs the line between dumb and gross. Between this and Black in America, conservatives finally have a common issue with people of color — they’re both really, really badly represented on CNN. image source