Poor Norm. A smart guy and a nice guy. But the simple reality is that Pearlstine peaked nearly 30 years ago when he was running the Journal. To his everlasting credit, he took a sleepy newspaper and transformed it into the best newspaper in the U.S. by hiring the sharpest, best talent around. That alone would be a tremendous accomplishment for any journalist. Moreover, he was right and his corporate masters were wrong when he wanted the Financial News Network while it was in bankruptcy and have Dow Jones start a business news cable channel. Instead, FNN became CNBC.

But let’s face it. Since leaving the WSJ, he’s done….what? He went to Time Inc., overhauled Fortune (which desperately needed it), and then did what Time Inc. top editors always do: try not to screw-up the People franchise and allow those bountiful profits to subsidize the rest of the magazines that run at a loss or are breakeven. And, for a media visionary, he never figured out the Net and was never able to make the corporate connection to CNN work. (I believe he was there when TW bought Turner, although I could be wrong.) Then he dabbled in investment banking, no doubt making the requisite fortune — as if he needed it.

Now our hero has alighted at Bloomberg. The soul-deadening sweat shop of American journalism, where every aspect of a reporter’s work day is monitored. Rarely has so much firepower produced so little of significance. They have nine gazillion reporters all over the world, and when was the last time you ever heard or read, “Bloomberg News is reporting….” No, breaking news is not the sine qua non of good journalism. On the other hand, if all Bloombergians have drank from the poisoned chalice of petty tyrant Matt Winkler — a man whose vision has never extended beyond the end of his ridiculous bow tie — one would think Bloomberg would have broken some more significant news than beating Reuters by 30 seconds that some Master of the Universe has been ousted from his position at Glominoid Corp.

Even funnier is that Pearlstine is now paired with WInkler. Am I the only one who realizes that this is a marriage in made in Hell? Pearlstine is a firm believer in a star system. Look who he hired at the WSJ and Time Inc. and how they were treated. Pearlstine firmly believes in individual talent and lettng that talent range far and wide. By contrast, there probably is no one outside the U.S. military who rejects the star system and all it represents than Field Marshall Winkler. Even more than the listing dinghy that is CNN, WInkler believes the news is the star. You can see how Norm has already managed to sneak some of his old “star” pals into Bloomberg, such as Al Hunt. But I suspect that is more about Bloomberg executives garnering invites to the right Washington, D.C. cocktail parties than it is about the warmed-over conventional wisdom Hunt offers in his columns.

Now it appears there will be others. Has anyone at Mediaite taken a look at BusinessWeek since its rape — uh, I mean purchase — by Bloomberg. I just looked at their “double issue” now on the newstands. There’s nothing more pathetic than when a business magazine tries to capture the gusts of popular culture. It’s like watching your parents breakdance. It just doesn’t work. So BW offers us James Cameron — six weeks too late. The design is dull — which is probably why Norm is poaching this guy from Time, and while he may be “legendary” he is also old, old, old — and the stories already bear the dead, lead hand of “Bloomberg style.”

Uh, oh. Sorry. This is beginning to read like a media column. That’s what you guys do. I’m just a humble reader. Not young enough, not hip enough, not connected enough for anyone to care what I think. Sorry, I won’t let it happen again.