Idiot of the Week: CNN

There were way too many solid choices this week, but this pick allowed me to add a new idiot to the ranks instead of simply awarding it to Michele Bachmann yet again. Just what did CNN do to win Idiot of the Week honors? As I suspect you've heard by now, they hired right-wing extremist Erick Erickson (RedState.com) as their newest pundit.

What's the big deal about Erickson, and why isn't he just another blogger to be put on air by a major news network? As Media Matters has so effectively summarized, Erickson has a long history of making the sort of inflammatory comments that we need less of on cable news. Examples include:

• Defending Glenn Beck's claims that Obama is a "racist" and elaborating on them in an even more over-the-top manner than Beck did
• Calling for a boycott of all the companies that pulled ads from Beck's vile show
• Writing posts with titles like "Is Obama Shagging Hookers Behind the Media's Back?"
• Describing retired Supreme Court justice Souter as a "goat fucking child molester" simply because he disagreed with his politics
• Defending Dan Riehl for suggesting that Sen. Reid's wife should be euthanized
• Insisting that Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was "an affirmative action quota"

CNN is now facing a considerable backlash for their decision to hire this guy, providing him with a platform for his right-wing hate. It has not worked so far, but time will tell. Regardless of what one thinks about Erickson's politics, it is difficult to imagine how CNN's decision to hire him will do anything but further degrade cable news. They have certainly lost this viewer.

H/T to Dispatches From the Culture Wars

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