Katie Misses the Point Again. Any Wonder She's Dead Last?

Reports today have surfaced that there's been a shakeup in the John McCain Presidential campaign team. A few staffers have been released, others have been reassigned. Apparently the fundraising efforts have fallen far short of their targets, and McCain needs to rearrange the deck chairs on his sinking ship. Given his rather uneven performance the last couple of years, it's not surprising that his Presidential bid is already dead on arrival. Also not surprising is the intentional misrepresentation of the facts by CBS anchor Katie Couric, who has insisted that McCain's slump is down to his continuing support of the Iraq War. Anyone who has even a minimal grasp of the facts knows that McCain's struggles owe very little to his Iraq position. His weak numbers can be almost exclusively attributed to three things: 1) His stubborn, even maniacal support of the Kennedy Illegal Immigration Amnesty Bill, 2) His coauthoring of the Free Speech infringing McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill and 3) His puzzling obsession with perceived "torture" at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. In fairness to Couric, NBC's David Gregory went out of his way to miss the point, as well. But he's just a reporter. Katie Couric, for better or worse, IS CBS News.

In discussing the abject failure that is the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, a great deal of time is spent focusing on her style of news delivery. Dan Rather, her embittered predecessor referred to it as "tarting it up" and "dumbing it down". But to simply reduce her problems to style trumping substance is to gloss over the facts. Substantively Katie Couric is doing no better or worse than either Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite did. They had just as little substance as she has, only her delivery is less formal. Journalistic malpractice is much harder to pinpoint when it's used by an old man in a navy suit. It's much harder to mask such malpractice when it's delivered by someone scolding the Secretary of State by borrowing a quote from her spoiled, school-aged daughter. Katie Couric isn't the disease, she's just a symptom of a greater disease that started with Walter Cronkite, continued with gusto throughout the Dan "Forged Documents" Rather era and remains to this day. The disease: acute arrogant indifference to the truth. CBS News has never been interested in reporting the facts. Instead, its reporters and anchors have tried to frame the news to advance their agenda and profiles.

Lyndon Johnson suggested that with regard to the Vietnam War, he had lost the American people once he'd lost Walter Cronkite. Cronkite turned that infamous line into the myth that he was somehow the "Most Trusted Man in America". This senile old coot had the nerve to suggest that Karl Rove coordinated the making of a video tape with Osama Bin Laden in an effort to rig the 2004 election! If you trust him now, I would have to have serious questions about your intelligence.

Dan Rather raised his profile over a nasty, sarcastic exchange he had with Richard Nixon. For his entire "career", he was totally in the tank with the tax and spend socialists in Washington. He was noticeably bitter whenever a Republican triumphed, he despised Ronald Reagan and had an appalling Captain Ahab-type obsession with the Bush family. The so-called mainstream media completely ignored the fact that Rather and his staff were caught trumping up charges relating to the National Guard and George W. Bush. And worse, some who acknowledged his shoddy journalism subsequently turned around to defend him. An embittered, partisan hack by the name of Bill Burkett provided Rather's producers with obviously fake documents in hopes of supporting the notion that George W. Bush had skipped some of his required National Guard duty. After getting caught trying to pass off phony documents as legitimate, Rather would have been well advised to own up to his fraud and resign in disgrace. Instead, he went on the offensive, repeatedly demanding that Bush respond to these cooked up allegations AS IF THEY WERE LEGITIMATE. Already a ratings failure, Rather's credibility became a serious liability to CBS. The network finally got tired of carrying the dead weight of his miserable ratings and cut bait.

Seeking a clean slate and a new vibe, CBS opted for Katie Couric. Her bias and her journalistic integrity were on a par with Rather's, but as a woman who'd had a successful reign on The Today Show, Couric was seen as an exciting breath of fresh air. Perhaps, it was thought, Couric would be able to draw ratings from a previously untapped audience, young and middle-aged women. Where Rather was seen as old and stuffy, Katie would be counted on to bring a softer touch to the network news. She tried some new stunts, like occasionally emerging from behind the newsdesk to more of a "talkshow" set. She had that "Free Speech" gimmick, where celebrities and Average Joes alike would have the opportunity to present a short on-camera editorial, but even then she couldn't resist injecting her liberal bias. In introducing an editorial given by a parent of one of the students murdered in the Columbine Massacre she suggested that the conservative Christian's views might be seen as "repugnant" by some viewers. Of course the "Free Speech" editorials presented by the likes of Katrina vanden Heuvel, Barack Obama, Arianna Huffington and Elizabeth Edwards were given no such introduction. Now, less than a year after Couric assumed the anchor position at CBS, many have drafted her obituary. Her newscast has consistently brought up the rear in the network evening news ratings. She's solidified the third-place position that Dan Rather secured during his dubious reign. In Los Angeles, Couric's newscast was getting beaten by, among other things, "That '70s Show" reruns. In the meantime, her apologists are in full spin mode. Lacking any credible conclusions, they've even been reduced to accusing non-viewers of being sexist...as if blaming the customer ever worked.

When all is said and done, Katie Couric was a dreadful choice to anchor the CBS News. CBS seemed to be under the impression that the product was fine, it was only the packaging that needed help. Unless they get to the root of the problem, their reckless and dishonest reporting, they're never going to get out of last place. But knowing CBS, they won't get rid of her. And even if they do, what are the odds they'll replace her with Keith Olbermann?