You thought Jon Friedman's open letter to Les Moonves was going to slip past us, didn't you? Well, we almost let it. Between (AA) meetings, (blogger) conference calls and our therapist and physician's combined advice to avoid all things Jon Friedman to save our sanity and lower our blood pressure, we almost took the bait.

But, did we mention: It was an open letter to Les Moonves? That's not something you can just ignore like a Michael Jackson paternity test, especially when Friedman name drops Katie Couric more often than Jeff Zucker.

His letter to Les goes a little something like this: Incoming CBS News chief Sean McManus is just a figure head (read: sacraficial lamb) and everyone knows it. You want Katie Couric to be your next evening news anchor, except she's under contract till May 2006 with the Today show and you're going to have to give wads of $100 bills to wipe her ass with to sign her even then.

So what's Jon-Jon's advice? Screw Couric and hire a nobody. Yep, as the number three network in that department anyhow, Les has some leeway to play with, so Friedman advises him to to groom a newcomer into his own network star. NBC did it with Conan O'Brien in its late night department, why not CBS in its news department?

For one thing, Conan was, and still is, a second stringer. They've had Jay Leno running the show while the redhead earned his badges. NBC groomed Brian Williams for Tom Brokaw's job, sure — but that was while they still had Brokaw.

CBS, let us remind you, has nobody. There's no one to fill in while Les shines his new star. Meanwhile, he's already dragged on for eight months since Dan Rather left his anchor gig. Oh, and, given ABC's track record, they'll probably up and steal Les' pet anchor anyhow a la Diane Sawyer and Meredith Vieira.

But we're glad this pressing media issue is at least on your radar, Jon-Jon. And somehow you managed to walk away from the article without spreading Katie's legs for a labia bath and for that, if nothing else, we applaud.

An Open Letter to Leslie Moonves [MarketWatch]