CNN Introduces The All-O'BRIEN MORNING Anchor Team

(From The Philadelphia Inquirer -- By Gail Shister)

BREAKFAST WITH O'BRIENS -- er, AMERICAN MORNING's new anchor team.

CNN correspondent MILES O'BRIEN, who joins SOLEDAD O'BRIEN on the
7 to 10 am weekday MORNING, appreciates the weirdness of sharing a surname with his coanchor.

"It's a move for global domination by all O'BRIENS to take over morning television," he says with a chuckle. "'THE SECRET O'BRIEN AND O'BRIEN SOCIETY.' 'O'BRIEN AND O'BRIEN.' 'O'BRIENS HAPPEN.'"

Even pre-MORNING, Miles says he was frequently asked if he and Soledad were spouses. They're not, but he does describe coanchorhood as "like being married, without conjugal benefits." (Marriage has conjugal benefits?)

Formerly the ATLANTA-based coanchor of CNN's weekday newscast LIVE FROM, Miles says he was pitched MORNING in the fall. At the time, BILL HEMMER was coanchor.

"My contract was almost up (in January) and I was trying to figure out what to do," says O'Brien, 46, a 13-year CNN veteran. "All of a sudden, out of nowhere, this was presented to me as an option."

His first reaction -- "'We've got Bill.' I'm truly a Bill Hemmer fan. This was stuff above my pay grade, a subjective thing. I snapped my heels and marched. I wasn't going to turn down an offer like that."

O'Brien says he was sworn to secrecy while CNN/US boss JON KLEIN AND COMPANY explored other options for Hemmer. (After turning down THE WHITE HOUSE beat, Hemmer left the network Friday.)

Being under a gag order about his new plum job "was like being in a strange little bubble," O'Brien says. "I was told to be quiet, but by the same token, I had kids, and a move" to arrange. "I'm glad it's all over."

Now that he's got a higher profile, O'Brien says he's not worried about being under the critics' microscope (again). He went through that in Summer 2001, in a mercifully short-lived coanchor run with ex-NYPD BLUE star ANDREA THOMPSON on CNN HEADLINE NEWS.

"When I was featured in a three-minute segment on JON STEWART's DAILY SHOW, I thought, 'What have I done to my career?' I had to laugh, and move on. I wouldn't be in this business for 25 years if I had thin skin. I'm long past trying to please everybody. I do my thing. It's all I can do."

O'Brien will continue to cover the space program for CNN. He has a passion for air travel -- he's part owner of a $450,000 CIRRUS SR22 four-seater, which he often flies to assignments.

In fall 2002, NASA gave the thumbs-up for O'Brien to relocate to Houston and begin two years' training as a mission specialist on a space shuttle, he says. His plan was to report live from space.

The announcement was to have been made in February 2003, O'Brien says, but after the COLUMBIA space-shuttle tragedy the same month, the mission was canceled.

O'Brien's latest mission -- finding a place in Manhattan to live with his wife, SANDY, and their two kids -- has been a real LOST IN SPACE eye-opener for him.

Their five-bedroom house on one acre in the Atlanta suburbs quickly sold. Their bid on a three-bedroom co-op has been accepted, but it could be months until -- or if -- the deal closes.

And the prices? "They take my breath away. It's insane. We were outbid on one property by $500,000.

"My wife used to be in real estate, and we've renovated a bunch of houses and sold them, so we consider ourselves pretty savvy. But I feel like GOMER PYLE in overalls saying, 'GOL-LEE!'"