With the arrival of Chris Licht, new CNN Chairman and CEO, feathers a-flyin’!

Not too long ago, the water clearly ran blue at CNN.  If the water at CNN is looking a little pinkish, thank Chris Licht, CNN’s new Chairman and CEO.  Chris Licht, they say, has won an armful of awards for excellence in programming.  For CBS.  But isn’t that the channel my grandpop and Walter Cronkite would watch—if they were still alive?

Forgive the funk.  After an abrupt discontinuation or drastic reduction in consumption of CNN, you can experience symptoms.  Though 9 out of 10 doctors would likely assure me that the withdrawal will pass in a few weeks to a year, I haven’t asked.  Sooo, I don’t really know.

What I do know is that under Chris Licht, true-blue CNN enthusiasts are getting screwed.  The nightmare didn’t feel real of course until Licht bulldozed the cornerstone of CNN’s primetime lineup.  Since Don Lemon’s been gone, Chris Licht’s Republican bosses can breathe for the first time while the rest of us have been up nights, dazed and confused about which way to squirm.  Slightly right . . . or all the way left.

Many of us have been canvassing these MSNBC streets in protest.  Punch drunk.  Mumblin’, “Where am I going, Where have I been?”

But more importantly, Why am I here?  Lurking around MSNBC, a drab CNN generic.  And who are these poorly lit, slightly used people in Librarian’s clothing?  Who is that bobble head with the great big black glasses and tiny blue eyes tired from reading?  Am I supposed to commit to a grungy lady? with limp brown hair? whose voice asks as many questions? as I’m asking now? when she’s, no doubt? making statements?

We just want the real CNN back.  But like Black people and Newports—as painful as the withdrawal may be—maybe it’s time to gone give up the sun-on-Christmas-paper shine that is CNN.  Gone put penthouse Barbie and Don back in their shiny wrappers for those blue-collar, bargain-basement knockoffs on MSNBC.

During the fifteen minutes I wrestled myself from the arms of sleep to find my Don Lemon on CNN This Morning, I saw 2 whole minutes of him.  When the camera panned to Kaitlan Collins and that other one, Poppy Harlow, they were chatting each other up like teenage girls breaking for a smoke in a high school bathroom . . . with Don Lemon snickering in the middle—because he gleans what’s going on.  Or should I say “going wrong?”

One CNN This Morning, the camera panned to Kaitlan Collins, and she looked as sleep-deprived as I was trying to keep up with Don Lemon.  Kaitlan was a baby doe in the headlights, mouth agape.  Not slightly parted and sexy.  Agape like “Whuh?  We’re not in Air Force One flying over Kansas, are we?”  What I learned from chasing Don is that not every senior political news correspondent shines as bright . . . chasing dawn.  Not even one as dazzling as Kaitlan Collins.

Chris got CNN licked.

Chris Licht sacrificed Don Lemon, John Harwood, Brian Stelter and or Jeffrey Toobin (same guy, right?) to the wolves to create a watered down version of Fox Gruel, a pond swimming with lying piranha and sly fox feeding off the bloated carcass of a t-Rump.

Chris Licht thought that a black for a black was a fair exchange.  Typical of most tone-deaf pale producers, in his rush to swap journalists for subject matter experts, he gave no consideration for the optics of exchanging Don Lemon, the mentor, for Laura Coates, the protégé.

Poor, brilliant Laura Coates!  Now because Chris Licht likes how MSNBC swings a camera, she has the added pressure of worrying about blacklash and back fat instead of whether her thoughts mesh.  Either way, Chris Licht put Laura Coates in a bad (and unenviable) spot.

While true-blue CNN viewers suffer withdrawal, Chris Licht continues snatching CNN newshounds by the scruff of their necks, only to force-feed them faux fox-isms to bring them back to “the right side” of life.  A glimmer of Jake Tapper showed up at dusk with blood trickling from one ear.  “The red wave is coming!” he exclaimed.  “The red wave is coming!”  If Fake Jake is any indication, the red wave is already here.  Fake Jake, who is hemorrhaging by the hour, is now only 60% trustworthy.  Lisping hypocritically after his transfusion, he feigns hating Meghan and Harry for taking the same great pains his boss, Chris Licht, is taking to hoist, if not resuscitate, their ratings.

CNN’s descent into a blood-red foxhole is pathetic.

Slinging Fake Jake flesh from day to night, snatching leftover Alisyn Camerota bones from brunch to unkindly dangle over primetime, tossing in a little Bianna Golodryga for a smoldering Moldovan garnish, or sticking a glazed-over Victor Blackwell beside an election board before noon makes for a whole lotta (unhappy) confusion just to chase fox tails.

Chris Licht’s confusion, however, is not just the high jinks of a mad genius.  His confusion is not just bizarre.  It’s embarrassing.  It’s Frankenstein, with his chest pumped up, taking a whack at whack-a-mole.

As Billy Graham Part Duh beckons fans of CNN into the light during intermissions—instead of those godless, lyin’ jackals over at Faux News, I pop my last xani.   Leaning into my anxiety, I recall the book Chris Licht penned.  “What I Learned When I Almost Died.”   And I can’t help but wonder, as I drift with reluctance from CNN’s polluted water to MSNBC’s dreary blue, if the follow up will be, “What I Learned When I Came To . . . And Killed CNN.”