They hired Olby with an eye to creating an angrier, more activist, more, um, “intellectual” version of MSNBC in hopes of capturing the edgy young liberal audience for whom Lawrence O’Donnell and Rachel Maddow simply aren’t pompous and hyperpartisan enough.

So naturally, their first big hire after he leaves is a borscht-belt-style comedian turned “View” co-host.

Dude?

Beginning this September, Joy Behar, Emmy® award winning talk show host, will make her return to primetime on Current TV’s new hour-long series. “The Joy Behar Show” (working title) will air nightly Monday through Thursday at 6pm ET and will repeat later the same evening in primetime. The timely and topical series will showcase Behar’s trademark sense of humor and unique brand of conversation and provide her with a platform to discuss the latest headlines, pop culture events and anything else that comes to mind.

Featuring a regular rotating ensemble of journalists, analysts and political satirists the program will focus on political events, social issues and relevant topics that impact the American zeitgeist. Her ensemble cast, title and premiere date will be announced later this summer…

“Joy Behar is a beloved veteran television personality with her finger on the pulse of what viewers care about,” commented Current TV Chairman and former Vice President Al Gore. “Millions of Americans tune in daily to hear her take on the issues along with her inimitable style. We are honored that Current TV will be Joy’s new primetime home.”

The new line-up will be Behar, Cenk Uygur, Eliot Spitzer, and Jennifer Granholm, which is dreadful as a four-hour block of political television but might not be half bad as the nucleus of an awful-yet-compulsively-watchable left-wing variety show. Joy in the Joan Rivers host role, Cenk as affable Andy Richter-esque sidekick, Granholm as the straight (wo)man, and Client Number Nine as some sort of Dean Martin figure wandering the set with drink in hand and firing off double entendres to the audience’s delight. Magical.

Exit question: If they were in the market for an obnoxious left-wing woman comic, why didn’t they go for the gold with one of the two Rosies? Lord knows, they’ve got the right outlook for Current.