CNN Plays <em>Jeopardy!</em>

• "If you believe James Earl Jones, it's the Most Trusted Name In News'"; or
• "You'll find it firmly down the middle of cable news, both in ideology and in ratings"; or
• "It opened up a restaurant in Denver and St. Paul during the conventions, and served many delicious milkshakes."

But today, it's the answer to this question: "This network will be farming out its on-air stars like Wolf Blitzer, Campbell Brown, Candy Crowley and Anderson Cooper to present video questions about politics on Jeopardy! on Thursday night."

CNN has been running promos for the show — featuring Canadian Alex Trebek! — and it's a pretty smart cross-promotional way to emphasize their other slogan, that "CNN=Politics." It's also a smart way to showcase their fancy-pants tools, like the maps n' graphs n' stuff, and presumably the famous Magic Wall. Since there are only five questions per category, and since we also know that Bill Schneider gets a question, I guess there won't be any Canadian reunions on the show since that leaves no room for John Roberts or Ali Velshi. Maybe one day Trebek will invite them to video-present in the category "Canadians Who Lurk Amongst You, Undetected."

Here's the promo, courtesy of All Things CNN, from whom I pilfered the pictures arrayed below. If you can say "pilfered the pictures" ten times fast, I'll pick up the tab for your milkshake at the CNN Grill.

Update: Looks like Trebek doesn't need his Canadian friends anymore — he's too busy with his new friends, like...Wolf Blitzer! This photo proves it. (Actually, we hear the two are tight. I wonder if Trebek shaved off his mustache because he finally realized that he could never compete with Wolf's lush crop of facial hair. Maybe they're sort of like Serena and Blair that way. Or maybe not.)