Nothing underscores the nature of the media's subculture than the burbling speculation about Larry King's successor on his eponymous CNN show.

Every month brings another story about how Larry's ratings have reached 'new lows', and in fact he's lost 44% of his audience over last year, routinely getting doubled by Sean Hannity and beaten up by the manly Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. Yet, poor ratings have done little to mitigate the enthusiasm of the media community for wondering who will assume 'the throne'.

Apparently the rumors can now be put to rest. Sorry Katie, but no soft-landing for you in Larry's chair. Piers Morgan, the Simon Cowell clone judge on America's Got Talent, has signed a lucrative deal to take over for Larry.

The liberal love affair with British lefties continues. Apparently qualified American lefties are in short supply. But wait, shouldn't Morgan have some journalistic credentials for the job? I mean, other than being British of a 'certain class', what does Morgan bring to the table?

Well, he used to be the editor of the far-left Daily Mirror--until he was forced to resign, Dan Rather-like after his paper committed a fraud on the British people by publishing staged pictures of British troops humiliating Iraqi prisoners.

Within the space of a few months the war in Iraq has claimed some formidable journalistic scalps. In January it was the chairman and director general of the BBC - skewered by the verdict of Lord Hutton. Last night they were joined in enforced retirement by the editor of the Daily Mirror, Piers Morgan. Mr Morgan had edited a rumbustuously anti-war paper - uneven in tone, but often laudable in ambition. Last night his newspaper career was in tatters after admitting that he had been hoaxed by whoever it was who sold him graphic pictures of Iraqi prisoners apparently being humiliated by British troops.

Well, that explains why he's been doing second-rate Simon Cowell imitations, but sheds no light on why CNN feels that a disgraced former publisher should be the face of CNN. The dissolution continues for CNN.