If current reports from Media Bistro (via Drudge ?) are correct, Paula Zahn will shortly be leaving CNN. That’s no big loss as far as I’m concerned. But I do worry about speculation that Campbell Brown will be filling the void.

Brown is an NBC reporter who is married to Dan Senor. Senor’s resume overflows with rightist associations from serving as senior adviser and spokesman for Paul Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, to White House Deputy Press Secretary, to representative to Vets for Freedom, the Republican front group that advocated both the war in Iraq and the Senate candidacy of Joe Lieberman.

Senor recently declined a position on the campaign staff of Republican presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, because of the potential conflict it would pose for his journalist wife. But the presence of such a conflict is already evident in his past and current activities, including his role as a consultant with his own Senor Strategies. And we don’t have to look to Senor for reasons to doubt the objectivity of Brown, who in an appearance earlier this year on the Today Show said:

“It’s difficult to say that you’re against the war and at the same time not say that you’re against the troops.”

That GOP talking point seems to have been pulled right out of her husband’s emails from Karl Rove. With this staff adjustment, CNN is enhancing the Lou Dobbs wing of the network - a wing that already includes the likes of Nancy Grace and Glenn Beck. If their goal is to turn the network into a cheap imitation of Fox News, they are doing an outstanding job.

Congratulations, CNN.