More Genius Moves at CNN

I thought it was a curious decision when I heard last week that Jon "Security Watch" Klein had canned Mike Brooks, CNN's half-analyst, half-correspondent, who served 26 years in the DC Metro police department, ran security for Delta Airlines, and served as a member of the FBI's Terrorism Task Force. If you keep relentlessly and rather awkwardly promoting your network as the "place to go for your security news," don't you want a guy like that around?

The answer is yes, especially when someone shoots up an Atlanta courthouse, which is what happened just days after Brooks got notice that his services would no longer be needed at CNN.

So during the shooting coverage, when he realized that he had just fired someone he suddenly needed very badly--Brooks has some of the best contacts in law enforcement at CNN, and is a regular on-camera presence during daytime coverage anytime anyone shoots anything up--Klein called him up and had a conversation that went something like this, I'm told:

Klein: How badly did we fuck up?

Brooks: Very badly.

The two had lunch on Tuesday, and are negotiating to bring Brooks back, which will likely happen, hopefully with a salary boost.