So the wires are lighting up over Sumner Redstone's station pick of the very conservative Jeff Ballabon to act as the Vice President of Communications. Not only is Ballabon a Republican activist ("NEW CBS VP: "OBAMA IS INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS" reads the sensationalist Huffpo title), but he's so pro-Israel he makes Yitzhak Ben-Zvi look like Osama Bin-Laden. So why did CBS go with the pick?

For one, the network is in a terribly precarious position: It has shows garnering the highest ratings on television, but its CEO is out of cash and selling off CBS to try to make payments. Ballabon has a history of crisis management, and this is definitely a crisis. But more importantly, CBS is lacking what NBC and Fox both have, namely a larger-than-life figure at the helm of the ship to gain media attention. Choosing the former lobbyist is already getting more attention to the network than anything they've done thus far this year. Now its just a waiting game to see how long it takes Dan Rather to furiously respond to his former show being operated by this guy.