Space Junk: Major Tom and His Lost Planet Airmen

"Where it got sticky is when our commentators were anchoring political coverage. Those are, in some ways, incompatible roles. We worked our way through that." Tom Brokaw to the Chicago Tribune's TV guru Phil Rosenthal. 

ROSENTHAL:  "So — as the senior statesman of NBC News, he has to expect the question — is MSNBC better off or worse without controversial commentator-anchor Olbermann, the channel's most controversial and most popular host right up until his abrupt final signoff Jan. 21?"

BROKAW: "You're not going to get me to go there. All of our component parts — NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC — are much bigger than one player, and I include myself in that.  If I went away tomorrow, NBC News would still be the dominant news division in America. There ain't none of us who is irreplaceable."

Taking Brokaw's analogy further:  Fox News is the Sun, a star around which all the planets orbit. The nuclear fusion of the Sun's hydrogen and helium gases produce enough energy to last another 5 billion years.  CNN is dwarf planet Pluto with an odd "eccentric orbit"  farthest from the Sun.  Pluto's ice is formed by nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and methane gas (cow flatulence).  MSNBC is "gas giant" Jupiter's boundaryless atmosphere of helium and hydrogen. 

H/t ZD