Mark Whitaker, Executive V.P. and Managing Editor of CNN Worldwide, kicked off CNN’s week of in-depth Super PAC coverage with an editor’s note this morning. The series addresses what they are and how much influence they’ll have in the 2012 presidential election.

The week-long series will air daily on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, John King USA and throughout prime time, including Anderson Cooper 360, Piers Morgan Tonight and Erin Burnett OutFront.

Whitaker initially uses Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart to help make his points. “You know that a news story has broken through, as we like to say in the journalism business, when Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart start playing it for laughs. In the last few weeks, the dynamic duo of Comedy Central has had a field day with the subject of super PACs, those fundraising machines that can raise unlimited donations to fund political ads, provided that they are not officially affiliated with a specific candidate.”

Details of what the network will be doing… “We will go behind the scenes at American Crossroads, Karl Rove‘s conservative PAC that helped launched the trend (and the conspiracy theories). We’ll profile Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas billionaire who wrote a $5 million check to a PAC that waged a nasty air war against Mitt Romney in South Carolina, helping to pave the way for Newt Gingrich‘s stunning primary victory on Saturday. We’ll air an investigation into how super PACs have outmaneuvered a bewildering obstacle course of campaign finance regulations, and given rise to calls for a whole new maze of do’s and don’ts.”

For more on what the week’s coverage will entail, click on the link above.