On the decision to move Cafferty, Klein said they were going to surround Blitzer "with a lot of bright bulbs who have something to say and know how to say it." Blitzer will play the part of "sober center of gravity in the midst of a rollicking situation room."
Which brings us around nicely to the name of Blitzer's new on-air empire, "The Situation Room."
Not be confused with MSNBC's new 9 p.m. show "The Situation," debuting June 13 and anchored by Tucker Carlson -- who, ironically, used to be "Crossfire's" Bashful and, had he not bolted for MSNBC, might have also wound up on "The Situation Room."
"We came up with the idea first," Klein joked, though he noted MSNBC is getting its "Situation" on the air first.
"The Situation Room" will not debut until "mid-summer," CNN said.
It replaces "Inside Politics," "Crossfire" and "Wolf Blitzer Reports" on the CNN lineup.
"The Situation Room," Klein said in a memo to staffers yesterday, "will be modeled in spirit after the White House Situation Room."
For his June 20 debut on "American Morning," O'Brien -- Miles, that is -- is moving from Atlanta to New York City. He told The TV Column that he's already gotten his kids into schools in New York, "which was a tough hurdle," and they're now "doing the real estate thing," which he called "sobering." He cheerfully predicted he and his family will "wind up living in a refrigerator box under the George Washington Bridge.
"The car service will come pick me up there."
In other CNN news, the network has hired two executive producers, for its Anderson Cooper- and Paula Zahn-anchored evening shows.
Victor Neufeld will take on Zahn. His résumé includes executive-producing CBS's "Early Show" and a stint as senior exec producer of ABC's newsmags, after executive-producing "20/20."
David Doss, who worked five years as executive producer of "NBC Nightly News" before executive-producing ABC's "Primetime Thursday," will wrangle Cooper.
