Did Kathy Griffin Say What I Think She Just Said?

Happy 2009 to everyone! I spent my last night of 2008 in my apartment with my girlfriend and one of my roommates and his girlfriend. We flipped channels around until settling for CNN's live coverage of the ball dropping in Times Square. Your hosts: Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin.

The unintentional comedy was through the roof, but that's not necessarily a good thing for supposedly serious journalism.

We cringed throughout the broadcast as Griffin's grinding voice seemed to be on autopilot, while poor Anderson Cooper tried in vain to keep the show from coming off the rails with his fake, patronizing laugh.

After the ball dropped, CNN stayed live for another hour to watch celebrations from the Central Time Zone, particularly from New Orleans, where correspondent Sean Callebs seemed to hate the "belligerent" revelers, some of which flipped off the camera.

The performance of hip-hop artist Lil' Wayne, which had been plugged at the beginning of the show, was full of backup exotic-looking dancers in neon outfits, thus leaving it mostly audio-only on the broadcast.

Then, hip-hop artist Coolio was interviewed in Las Vegas, proclaiming he would go down as one of the top 10 performers in the history of hip-hop.

It was also during this hour that those exiting Times Square made their dislike for Griffin a bit more vocal. CNN went to break, but not before Griffin let out this verbal blast to her hecklers. (WARNING: Griffin's remark will probably offend) For those who don't want to click the link (I don't blame you), she made a vulgar remark about what she deemed an appropriate line of work for those who ridiculed her. The exchange was conveniently left out of the replay a few hours later.

Besides the fact that CNN is due for a hefty fine, and that Kathy Griffin probably won't be back next year, why are the cable news channels allowing themselves to broadcast New Year's Eve as if they were Carson Daly or Dick Clark?

We flipped over to Fox News, who had their overnight crew partying just as hard as those in the crowd. MSNBC just played the feed for NBC's celebration hosted by Carson Daly, probably the best move among the big cable news networks.

How can this be considered journalism? Even if CNN doesn't intend for it to be journalism, why do they send a legitimate journalist to anchor their coverage?

The final verdict: Unprofessional, but unintentionally funny.