SACRAMENTO, CA - CNN has grabbed Connie Chung away from ABC and is sending her to do battle with Bill O’Reilly of Fox, which recently grabbed CNN’s Greta Van Susteren of “The Point” and formerly “Burden of Proof.” This all amounts to more than musical chairs.

Women have fared rather well in the world of television news, which has personalities rather than thinkers, and in which people aren’t so much hired as cast. Television producers, and moguls such as Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch, hire people that viewers will want to watch, and pay them a lot of money. Those who believe that appearance doesn’t figure largely in the process might try and track down that history of the Vietnam war by Laurie Duhe or a volume on economics by Leslie Stahl. Or search for cosmetics commercials featuring Morley Safer and Mike Wallace. But in television there is also an affirmative action process based on gender.

Viewers will recall that ABC once struck a blow for gender equity by pairing Connie Chung with Dan Rather on the “CBS Evening News,” an arrangement that ended in 1995. Connie moved on to ABC, where she scooped her colleagues with an interview of Gary Condit, who was unable to explain the whereabouts of Chandra Levy, an intern with whom he was reportedly on good terms. While Rep. Condit (D-Ceres) bombed, Connie got generally good reviews. But there is no reason why her move to CNN, where she will join Larry King in that elite group with their own show, should excite the masses.

Connie Chung, after all, has no record of carefully researched books, thoughtful essays, or even cogently argued magazine articles or op-ed pieces. Yes, she has worked at television “newsmagazines,” where squads of underlings did the digging and she read the lines on camera. Easy to be a “journalist” in those circumstances.

The British, more sensible in these areas, do not share the American veneration for telly people. In Britain, those who read the news are not “anchors,” a silly term, but simply newsreaders, hired more for their ability to read the news than for their appearance. The British do, on the other hand, have more veneration for writers and thinkers such as Paul Johnson, who conducts his own research. The British are also adept at electing capable women such as Margaret Thatcher to run their country. While stateside it’s anchors aweigh, no one should consider Connie Chung’s move to CNN as a mark of advancement for women, much less minority women.

Like many people in television and entertainment, Connie Chung has confused having money, power, and fame with having something to say. She is a standard-brand, predictable liberal and doctrinaire feminist, part of the dominant and politically correct culture that Bernie Goldberg has exposed in his bestseller, Bias. Connie, and doubtless her new boss Ted Turner, wants to take on Mr. O’Reilly of Fox, one of the few in television who shows a conservative side. I doubt whether Connie and her staff are up to the task, but the move may provide some decent entertainment.

For one thing, CNN is now the “Chung-King” channel. You heard it here first and, given the fare on that network, such as their terrible series on the Cold War, perhaps that’s an example of what Blake called fearful symmetry.