Is it too soon to ask who will replace Ed Bradley?

“The word irreplaceable is appropriate when you are talking about Ed,” Sean McManus says. According to the NY Post, McManus will start searching for additional 60 Minutes reporters — not a Bradley replacement — after the New Year.

But an e-mailer is speculating already: “Does CBS poach Anderson Cooper away from CNN permanently to host Early Show and report for 60? Does Byron Pitts get the job, and then Lee Cowan replaces him as national correspondent? Does Lara Logan come on full time, and someone else becomes chief foreign correspondent? Will his replacement be a black man? Or will Scott Pelley and Bob Simon pick up the slack?…”