Thanks to Jon Klein‘s “visionary leadership, Regular Pure CNN has gone from being the second place cable network to being the third … wait, make that occasionally fourth place cable network, behind a surging (opinionated) MSNBC and Head-Buttin’ Headline News itself!,” Slate’s Mickey Kaus writes. So he wonders:

“If the ‘brash’ head-butt format keeps delivering, how long before it infiltrates Regular Pure CNN? Sub-question: How much more expensive is it to produce Regular CNN than Headline News? Three times as much? Ten times? … Bonus question: Whatever happened to storytelling?“

> Update: 12:35pm: An e-mailer responds: “So, what we’re saying is ‘he’s a bad guy if he brings opinion shows like Glenn Beck over to CNN,’ but we’re also saying ‘he’s a bad guy if he doesn’t make changes and lets CNN drift into 3rd or 4th place.’ Doesn’t anyone see the problem with this line of thinking? Basically, he’s damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t. I’m not the biggest Klein fan in the world, but let’s cut the guy some slack and give him a place to go with the network at least.”