Freed from the burdens of filling Mpls.St.Paul magazine with glittering prose, Brian Lambert is again prowling the media beat full time, competing — and today, beating — yours truly for the daily Strib memo.

Lambert, bitter ex-dailyite that he is, eviscerates the document, a job posting for Nick Coleman's and Katherine Kersten's replacements. (To answer a frequently asked question: yes, Nick is losing his column, but management is keep him twisting in the wind until it figures out what's next.)

I'm all about link love; I won't tread where the savagely entertaining Mr. Lambert has stomped. Instead, I'll take what he leaves me — the earnest route — and ask this:

Who should the Strib's two new metro columnists be?

Yeah, I know: Diablo Cody and Chuck Klosterman. Ha ha. Indulge your literary fantasies in the comments — please — but to make this work, we need realists.

Let's face it, two people are going to get the gig. We want them to not suck. Management reads this blog. Before you start complaining about their choices, maybe you could suggest a name or two who'd work for 70K.

In the spirit of the real, we must grudgingly accept some limits. As Lambert, ahem, notes, the Strib isn't looking for indefatigable ideologues or those comfortable telling management to get screwed. (The last is a fatal flaw, but let's soldier on.) They want someone who can report and "break exclusive news," but also tell stories. In the spirit of Pangloss, let's pretend these writers can occasionally say what they think about the issues of the day, even about politics.

Because this is the Strib, if you pair your nominees, one must be a man and one a woman. At least one must be a current Stribber; I can't see them breaking open the piggy bank for more than one outside hire. (And honestly, I can't even see them doing that.) Both must be current Stribbers, according to the memo.

So post your nomination(s) below, with a brief reason why. The temptation to snark is unavoidable, but I'm not going to let things get mean-spirited. The time to make someone cry is after they get the gig.

If you work at the Strib or PiPress, you may send your nominations directly to dbrauer [at] minnpost.com. I will post them in the comments, sender's name removed, as I see fit. Confidentiality guaranteed, but no self-nominations, please.

Oh, you want a name from me? And piss off sources I need to suck up to with Hurricane Lambert bearing down?