In its quest to out-fox Fox News, CNN is handing over its 8:00 pm time slot to conservative shill, Laura Ingraham for a week. Ingraham is the diva that deemed that artists should “Shut Up and Sing” (unless, of course, you’re Ronald Reagan or Fred Thompson). It was only a few weeks ago that CNN recruited Glenn Beck for the same duty. Is this the beginning of a parade of rightist ideologues to audition for the role from which Paula Zahn has been ousted?

Who’s next? Rush Limbaugh? Michael Savage? Ann Coulter?

It is more than a little puzzling that CNN would pursue this course when they already have Lou Dobbs to represent the intolerant, blowhard wing of public opinion. And there doesn’t seem to be an argument for ratings when you consider that Beck bombed, performing 23% below the failing Zahn. If ratings were a consideration, then why doesn’t CNN try to emulate the example of a surging Keith Olbermann rather than the fading Bill O’Reilly, who has lost half his audience in the past two years.

Speaking of fading, wasn’t it Ingraham who called CNN a dinosaur in an appearance on The O’Reilly Fester? And this is her reward. Ingraham also impugned the character of reporters who risk their lives in war zones. Her reward for that was a smackdown by Lara Logan of CBS. Then there was the time Ingraham urged her radio listeners to jam the phone lines of a voter protection hotline.

If CNN considers Ingraham to be a credible host for their “news” network, they really are marching further down the trails blazed by Fox. By traipsing a flock of right-wing pundits across their airwaves they demonstrate the fallacy of the liberal media myth. It’s not as if they couldn’t pick from the likes of Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, Thom Hartmann, Rachel Maddow, Stephanie Miller, Sam Seder, Taylor Marsh, Jim Hightower, Laura Flanders, or other distinguished progressive commentators. It’s just that they don’t want to. And that’s the problem.