The End of Network News

Normally, I would not consider wasting a nanosecond writing about the sugar-frosted pustibule that is Katie Couric ... but given that she has replaced news in the Great American Consciousness I feel compelled to weigh in with a hearty "what in hell are they thinking about at CBS? Are they on drugs? Does Couric possess some negatives that we should all know about? In short, "what up" (as Katie is fond of saying when she attempts ebonics)."

Katie (as NBC has asked us to think of her .. at least until now, when they might perhaps take my suggestion of renaming her "Kootie"), is perhaps the single most irritating "personality" on television. She was hired 15 years ago to join the "Today Show", then languishing near the bottom of the league tables for morning shows. As NBC managed to elevate the Today Show to the dominating spot, Kootie rose with the tide, becoming a national "celebrity." But, throughout the rise of the Today Show Kootie has managed to assemble a string of gaffes, misrepresentations, idiocies, etc., that has polarized the TV viewing nation -- which is more or less all of us (even if you don't watch the Today Show, even from a hotel room when on the road, you will have seen her drivel onthe Macy's Thanksgiving Parade coverage). IF you care about her at all, you then either hate her with the searing passion of a nuclear reactor "gone critical", or you love her perky liberal inanities. Very few people can be said to be on the sidelines if pushed. So pushing myself to make a determination, I find her to be slightly more reliable than Chirac, a man I would not believe as far as I could throw him (though, inasmuch as he is a bloated gas-bag, he might travel farther than I might think).

My best Kootie moment had to be when she cried "on-air" after the results of the Boosh/Kerry election were announced. Hmmm, stunning piece of news journalism, that. Sort of puts away any contention that she in unbiased and objective. For anyone that has endured the Today Show (on TV at the gym, for example), Kootie's unrelenting liberal bias is grating. Everything that is remotely contentious, is posed from the view point that the interviewee must be stupid if he/she thinks contrary to her liberal point of view. A classic example was when Kootie asked "if it would hurt Schwarzenegger when people learned his dad had been a member of the Nazi Party. Then she went on to list every "bad" thing she could think of – all in the form of a question, of course." -- Ackley.

The trouble is, she is so often confused or simply wrong with her facts, or too stupid to see an opportunity even when it lands in her lap like a melon. Take the following (from the Drudge report): Sen. John Kerry claimed this morning on NBC TODAY that 53% of America's children do not graduate from high school -- a claim that raised eyebrows in the NBC control room, sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

Kerry made the comments after host Katie Couric asked the former presidential candidate about Bush's State of the Union call to train 70,000 additional teachers in math and science.

COURIC: He wanted to train 70,000 additional teachers in math and science.

KERRY: That's terrific. But 53 percent of our children don't graduate from high school. Kids don't have after-school programs... He didn't ask America to sacrifice anything to achieve great goals and the biggest example is making the tax cut permanent for the wealthiest people in America. The average American struggles to find time to take carry of families, working two or three jobs... It's a disgrace. He did not tell the real state of the union.

Kerry's 53% claim conflicts with a recent press release from the U.S. Census Bureau: "High School Graduation Rates Reach All-Time High"

And the Census Bureau's own website states: 85.9 Percent Of Americans Aged 20-24 Are High School Graduates. (U.S. Census Bureau Website, www.census.gov , Accessed 2/1/06)

Even the liberals (or most of them ... why does Hillary look like a deer in the headlights?) want to avoid being associated with her: Kooties to the cause, she makes them look bad. Try googling "Hate Katie Couric" and you will see that about half of the websites are liberal-biased, maybe more than half. Stunning in that nobody wants to be associated with her, especially her co-hosts for the past 15 years. Matt Lauer in particular ... he loathes her, or more likely having to quickly pick up on any gaffes or misstatement that she makes over the course of a morning. Kind of like having to follow a chihuahua around with a pooper-scooper. You never know.

When Kootie's husband died of cancer in 1998, she gained tremendous respect from viewers for her strength and example. But why was she not at home with her two daughters, then aged seven and two? I am not suggesting that she should be a stay at home mom, but providing a necessary psychological support for her kids at a critical point in time. At the end of it all, will her children be better off to know that her mom went on TV as usual as their dad lay dying? Or is it more important that the US could see brave Kootie continuing to soldier bravely on, a paragon of courage?

Kootie has morphed from the Mary-Lou Retton of the TV news world (cute, but an absolute moron), into a paradoy of Diane Sawyer on a cocktail of anti-depressants with a few shots of vodka added. You have got to believe that more than a few blondes are getting up a petition to the effect that Kootie is perpetuating stereotypes and for her to dye her back to her normal color for all their sakes. Was she smarter as a brunette? Was that when someone saw a perky, bright thing just right for the slot of the cheerleader on the Today Show? Or were they aghast at the monster they created and then could not tame? Truly this is the End of Network news. If they think that anyone younger than 60 is going to tune in to watch Kootie for the news, they are sadly mistaken. If anyone tunes in, it will only to laugh their asses off: it will become a college phenomenon ... happy hour with Kootie. Perhaps that is what CBS is planning? Hook the ignorant on the "CBS Evening News with Kootie," then feed them liberal pap and mumbo-jumbo that they are too wasted to parse as the bullshit that it is? A great, long-term liberal conspiracy to brainwash the braindead? It had better be that or it is just too insane for belief.