How much is too much? Following the President’s State of the Union address last night, CNN’s crack political team went into action with charts, graphs, John King’s “magic screen,” pulse meters and pundrity. Oh, the pundits. All paid “consultants.” Ten of them sitting in a semi-circle pontificating on what the President said, didn’t say or should have said. Overkill? For sure. Predictability? Absolutely. The tiresome faces of Carville, Begala, Rollins, Matalin, Gergen and others. I can almost lip sync what they are going to say, which gives me a great idea. CNN should fire them all, but retain the rights to reruns. And after every significant speech, election or important political event, the network could repeat their commentaries. It changes so little that only minor editing would be required. CNN could use the million dollars-plus to hire real reporters. As a grateful beneficiary of my IRA that CNN so generously built during my ten years as the network’s Senior Investigative Correspondent, I am passing along my idea free of charge.

Meantime, there is positive progress to report about the network’s newsgathering. The series of stories about the use of federal stimulus funds to create jobs is a noble effort. I can’t vouch for the accuracy and context of reports about individual stimulus projects. But it is a lot more substantive than saturation coverage of Tiger Woods and other celebrity news. The stimulus reporting combined with the network’s remarkable coverage in Haiti gives hope that CNN has not lost all sense of priorities. Now if only Rich Sanchez could wipe those idiotic looks of outrage from his face after each stimulus story, regardless of its merit. He apparently is trying to convey the impression that he understands what is going on.

Oops. I’m beginning to sound like one of those damn pundits.