I think even liberals have too much bought into the notion that CNN is, by the standards of these things, more down the middle than the other cable nets. The real story with CNN is that they don't do much political coverage during the day, and during the evening when they do cover it, they employ a very large rogues' gallery.
As for Erickson, I'm not shocked that CNN hires a conservative. We're used to that. I'm just shocked that they'd employ somebody as stupid as he is.