The best journalist on CNN is losing her show -- and will be replaced by Erin freakin' Burnett.

We can't have actual journalism on CNN. The rest of them might get ideas:

NEW YORK — CNN's Soledad O'Brien won't immediately be leaving CNN even though her job as morning show host is ending.

New CNN boss Jeff Zucker said Thursday that he has reached a deal to help fund a production company for O'Brien, who will be making three documentaries for CNN and host this year's "Black in America" documentary. Zucker is developing a new morning show around Chris Cuomo. He is expected to be teamed with Erin Burnett.

Ah yes, Erin Burnett. Wall Street's sweetheart!

O'Brien said the deal will let her do what she wants to do most, confronting difficult topics and telling underreported stories. She'll also have the opportunity to own her work and the production company is able to sell material to outlets other than CNN.

Her new company, Starfish Media Group, will also develop theatrical and scripted television projects.

As Cenk points out, this is the same kind of deal that was offered to Anne Curry -- who has since been invisible.

"Most trusted name in news?" Hardly. Let CNN know what you think of them cleansing their airways of actual journalism. Click here! You can also call 404.827.1500.

I can't honestly say I blame him for the sentiment, but it was probably not smart for Hillary Clinton's personal spokesman Phillipe Reines to dash off an email telling Buzzfeed reporter Michael Hastings to "have a good day. And by good day, I mean f*ck off."

It was, at the very least, undiplomatic in a situation where such a lack of discretion might not cause anyone to blow up a city, but could still blow up a news cycle or two at a crucial moment in the Obama campaign. So yes, it was undiplomatic and should have been handled with more finesse.

With that said, I totally understand why he did, and view this particular exchange as an interesting window into our fourth estate and their "unbiased" reporting.

Here were the questions originally sent to Reines by Hastings:

A few quick questions for you. Why didn't the State Department search the consulate and find AMB Steven's diary first? What other potential valuable intelligence was left behind that could have been picked up by apparently anyone searching the grounds? Was any classified or top secret material also left? Do you still feel that there was adequate security at the compound, considering it was not only overrun but sensitive personal effects and possibly other intelligence remained out for anyone passing through to pick up? Your statement on CNN sounded pretty defensive--do you think it's the media's responsibility to help secure State Department assets overseas after they've been attacked?

These questions followed were asked in relation to *this article by Hastings, where he seemed to be defending CNN against some very real pushback from the Department of State over their report on Ambassador Stevens' personal diary, which was found after the attack.

Reines correctly pointed out that all US government personnel had been removed from the area and were therefore unavailable to recover personal items from the embassy. As I explained at the time, consulates have a different security scheme than embassies do, and in any event, security personnel would first be responsible for removing and securing classified information, not a personal diary.

This is essentially what Reines told Hastings in his first response to the questions, which he viewed as "needlessly antagonistic." In addition, Reines expanded on why he, and by extension, the State Department, was angry with CNN's reporting on the diary.

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[h/t Raw Story]

If CNN is planning their comeback by letting people like Soledad O'Brien have their way with interviews, they're on the right track. While there's a long road ahead, O'Brien is one of the bright spots in an otherwise dismal array of right wing hacks.

In this clip she takes on OpSec President Scott Taylor by pointing out all of his Republican connections and challenging him on his non-partisanship. His reply was what one might expect. He claims to be "an American before [he] is a Republican."

Yeah, right.

This entire segment is an example of how a journalist can allow the other side to be heard and still clarify for the audience that they actually do have an agenda beyond their "America first" theme.

My one criticism is that she didn't take aim at the leaks that outed Valerie Plame, thanks to Dick Cheney and yes, CNN. But she can try for that next time.

Transcript after the jump:

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Paul Krugman's take on Romney's choice of Paul Ryan is, I think, spot on. He thinks Romney is relying on the politerati to just hunker down in their false equivalence bunker and treat Ryan as some kind of Very Legitimate Serious Guy.

What Ryan is good at is exploiting the willful gullibility of the Beltway media, using a soft-focus style to play into their desire to have a conservative wonk they can say nice things about. And apparently the trick still works.

With that in mind, I give CNN's Soledad O'Brien some serious props for staying right on the truth and not letting Romney spokesperson Barbara Comstock do her best impression of Reince Preibus and most of the Republican Party. This nonsense lie that $700 billion has somehow been "stolen" from Medicare played in 2010 when no one really knew what the Affordable Care Act would do. Two years later, senior citizens aren't "losing" anything. They've actually saved lots of money just on the prescription benefit itself.

Of course, that didn't stop Comstock from trying. And when O'Brien wouldn't let her go there, she fell back on the old "death panel" routine, hoping that would somehow leave viewers all shivery and afraid. It's pretty pathetic. Here's the actual exchange:

O'BRIEN: The budget, as I put it out earlier, was passed. That $700 billion was -- what Republicans, virtually every Republican agreed to that twice, twice in 2011 and 2012. So to say that it's -- the money is being stolen I think is the word that you used, that has been debunked.

COMSTOCK: That has taken -- that's taken --

O'BRIEN: That's factually not true.

COMSTOCK: No, that is taken from current seniors and our plan --

O'BRIEN: It is not. It is not taken from current seniors. It is not affecting the benefits.

COMSTOCK: Well, you have to look --

O'BRIEN: I am telling you, it has been -- the CBO and others have done a breakdown of it. And as you know this, they're not cutting the benefits to the elderly. They are cutting the benefit in fact --

COMSTOCK: We aren't, we aren't -- what about the 15-member board that can decide what procedure, whether my dad can get, you know, ablation again because he's 77.

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He just can't help it. This is what a guy who is concerned with bottom lines thinks. Mitt Romney has no empathy for the very poor because in his mind the scaled-back food stamp, Medicaid and welfare programs will take care of them. No, no. He's concerned with the middle class. Of course he's concerned about the middle class! They're the biggest block of potential voters.

This is how Romney rolls. He is always looking for the bottom line, the way to get from point A to point B, whether or not he steamrolls people along the way. Since the 'very poor' are unlikely to be Romney voters, he's not concerned about them.

It's a classic gaffe on his part, nearly as bad as John McCain's remark that the "fundamentals of the economy are sound" in 2008, made at a time when the fundamentals were very, very badly broken.

Here's what he said:

This is a time people are worried. They're frightened. They want someone who they have confidence in. And I believe I will be able to instill that confidence in the American people. And, by the way, I'm in this race because I care about Americans. I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it.

If I were to stop there, it would make a wonderful ad. But Soledad O'Brien gave him a chance to fix what he just said. Here's the rest:

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