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Couric, McCain and Bush John LeBoutillier Katie Couric Various news reports this week predict that the announcement will soon come that NBC's Katie Couric will jump to CBS to become the "first female sole news anchor." If this indeed does happen and is not just another negotiating ploy to extract even more money from NBC (rumors are they have already offered Katie a whopping $20 million per year) then it will indeed be, as network news veteran Liz Trotta says, "the end of network news." Katie Couric is the best at what she does: hosting a morning news program. She is the perfect combination of serious and fun and always willing to make herself the brunt of jokes from her fellow cast mates. But to sit in the chair once occupied by a serious newsman like Walter Cronkite is not her strength. And it won't work. Joking at 7 in the morning is one thing; editing and then reading the news at 6:30 in the evening is another. And she won't be good at it. (Remember a few years ago when she subbed for Tom Brokaw? It just wasn't her.) CBS, as always, is making the wrong choice. Its president, Les Moonves, wants a star' despite the fact that its "CBS Evening News" has recovered from the Dan Rather debacle quite well under the professional tutelage of longtime pro Bob Schieffer. The ratings have climbed steadily so that they are now pressing ABC for second place. If Katie Couric indeed jumps to CBS, here are the inevitable consequences: 1) Her first night on the "CBS Evening News" with all the accompanying hype will indeed score huge ratings. 2) There will then be an immediate and subsequent falloff the next night and especially the third night as viewers return to NBC and ABC. Thus, the novelty' factor will have lasted one day. 3) Backstage grumbling will soon appear in the media from longtime CBS news pros who saw this mistake coming. 4) Within three months, speculation will make the print press that CBS is thinking of "bringing in a male co-anchor to work with Katie." She will not like that and she can be a real diva when unhappy. 5) As the ratings continue to falter and press criticism increases there will even be speculation that CBS is contemplating moving Katie from the evenings to resuscitate their always-flopping "Morning Show" (which she will not do). 6) Meanwhile, over at NBC, the "Today" show will have a tough time finding Katie's replacement and they will struggle to maintain their longtime dominance of morning news. Conclusion: If Katie jumps, everyone will lose. Her career will head downward granted, at a slow pace and with tons of money (remember Jane Pauley?). CBS News will again demonstrate how totally inept and over' it is. And NBC will always miss her in the mornings. John McCain McCain's performance on "Meet the Press" on Sunday showed just what a total fraud he is. Quote after quote was brought out each showing that this fellow was wrong about everything in Iraq. And yet Tim Russert and all the rest of the so-called Mainstream Media continue to suck up to him! Here's the rub: McCain isn't as smart as they or he thinks. He is making all the wrong political moves at all the wrong times: proposing a guest-worker program in a political party that views it as amnesty; defending a war in Iraq that most people have long given up on; defending the Dubai Ports deal when everyone knew that was a bad deal. McCain is a bully, arrogant, sarcastic and angry to his core. The more you see him, the more you figure him out. We cannot have him as our president. He has nothing going for him other than his former POW status and the adoration of the liberal media.
President Bush
President Bush has totally mishandled the immigration debate and put himself once again on the wrong side. The pictures last week of him cavorting in Mexico with Vicente Fox while the debate raged in our streets is certain to drive his already anemic poll numbers even lower. And then his own party will defy him even more. He is only accelerating his lame-duck status and his presidency has deteriorated into almost-irrelevant status.
Editor's note:
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