Bill O'Reilly recently agreed to let fellow Mexican-hater Lou Dobbs onto his show to talk about how Barack Obama is from Kenya. But Dobbs' employer CNN apparently wouldn't let him appear on its chief competitor, Fox News. Imagine that.

Earlier this week, Bill O'Reilly announced on the air that he was trying to get Dobbs to appear on The O'Reilly Factor in the wake of Dobbs' defense of the birthers, but it never happened. It turns out that the outside, non-CNN PR firm that promotes Dobbs' radio show had actually reached out to Fox News to try to get Dobbs on the show, and Fox bit. Now Mediaite has the e-mail exchange between O'Reilly's producer and Dobbs' flack setting up the booking, with Dobbs' publicist writing "I sat with Lou last week and he is very interested in coming on so if Bill is into it, it would be a solid." O'Reilly's producer wrote back on Tuesday, "we will take lou dobbs on the factor tomorrow."

Of course, O'Reilly did not "take" Lou Dobbs on "the factor," leading to the conclusion that CNN put the kibosh on it. Which makes sense to the extent that it would be insane for CNN to let one of their top personalities (hey, we're not the ones who gave him an eponymous show) appear on the top-rated show of the network they've been in a personalized, insult-riddled death-match with for more than a decade. Dobbs' appearance would provide ample opportunity for TV writers to point out that he tripled his audience by going on O'Reilly's show, and for Fox's flacks to repeat ad nauseum that the only way CNN's lineup can get any traction is to go on Fox. It would be utterly humiliating. Not to mention the fact that Dobbs wanted to talk about how he's not sure the president of the United States is an American, a story that CNN is embarrassed about and wants to shut down.

So, mystery solved as far as we're concerned. Also: Fox's flacks—hi Irena!—leaked the e-mails to Mediaite in order to embarrass CNN by making them look like they can't control their talent, are scared to let their people "get taken" on "the factor," and are generally a no-talent shit-show run by desperate and unprofessional executives—the latter of which, to the extent that they employ Lou Dobbs, is indisputably true. We don't know that, but we still know it.

CNN didn't respond to our inquiry.