Palin's Worst Answer Yet

If Sarah Palin knew who she was talking about down below, then we would have to conclude that she supports the terrorist group Hamas. Of course, she doesn't, as we can tell from the rest of her incoherent answer to Couric's question. Like all of the other responses we have seen so far, she diverts from what was asked of her because she has no clue what she's talking about.

Can't Name A Newspaper? Palin Continues To Amaze Me

This interview is the gift that keeps on giving. While Sarah Palin has devolved into a nightmare for the McCain campaign, she horrifies voters with every new answer to some of the simplest questions most candidates will ever face.

Palin Shows Ignorance Of The Supreme Court

Except for the Supreme Court ruling legalizing a woman's right to choose, Sarah Palin knows nothing about what the Court has done. That's right, nothing, nada, zip. She wasn't asked if she knew there were nine justices currently sitting, so perhaps she knew what most grade school children are taught. Of course, kids in high school are instructed on Marbury v. Madison, Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education and dozens of other influential cases throughout our history that have helped define us as a nation. One would think and hope a woman that wants to be a heartbeat from the Presidency would know this stuff but sadly, you'd be wrong.

From Politico:

Of concern to McCain's campaign, however, is a remaining and still-undisclosed clip from Palin's interview with Couric last week that has the political world buzzing.

The Palin aide, after first noting how "infuriating" it was for CBS to purportedly leak word about the gaffe, revealed that it came in response to a question about Supreme Court decisions.

After noting Roe vs. Wade, Palin was apparently unable to discuss any major court cases.

There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence.

That silence was most likely deafening to Couric and most certainly will be to the American people. We as a nation demand more of our leaders. When those that wish to ascertain power from the consent of the governed can not even recall what it is one of the three co-equal branches of government does is a sad statement for that candidate. Meanwhile on the Democratic ticket, we have Joe Biden, who is well-versed on the Court, including an incredible display of insight and tact that led to the defeat of Robert Bork's nomination to the Court. That contest made Republicans red in the face but no one could deny his commanding presence when it came to fulfilling the Senate's duty to scrutinize the President's pick for the Supreme Court. I seriously wonder if Sarah Palin is aware of that time in our recent history.

McCain And Palin Attack The Media In First Interview

There are plenty of reasons to criticize the media, but when they ask valid questions of candidates the people have a right to their honest answers. With John McCain and Sarah Palin, instead of being forthright with voters they blame the media for daring to act as defenders of our democracy.

Palin Lied To Couric About "Trade Missions"

Even though we haven't seen all of the footage from the Katie Couric interview of Sarah Palin, so far it has been quite painful to listen to her answers. On Saturday Night Live, Tina Fey used the responses verbatim, no need to tweak something for the audience when it is already laugh out loud funny (tragically so I might add). We also know she is a pathological liar and not unexpectedly, there was a whopper in there about Alaska and Russia.

From RawStory:

Research doesn't show a single Alaska-Russia trade mission since former Democratic governor Tony Knowles visited Siberia in 1997, when Palin was running Wasilla, according to Salon.com.

When the reporter asked gubernatorial spokeswoman Kate Morgan about this issue, she refused to answer. Morgan claimed she couldn't legally discuss the matter because she is a state employee and the reporter had learned about the trade missions through the Couric interview, which stems from her bid for the Oval Office.

Spokespeople for the McCain/Palin campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Palin has never visited Russia and had never traveled outside of North America until last year, the Associated Press reported. The vice presidential candidate had never met a foreign leader until a trip to New York this week.

Another day, another lie care of Sarah Palin. Now how exactly do Republicans say with any credibility that she's trustworthy? Oh yeah thats right, they don't.

Palin Sounds Painful

Sarah Palin's performance during Couric's interview of her was so torturous, so laughable and so pathetic, that Couric went on afterwards to talk not about how terrible her policy ideas are, but that she was completely incoherent and the only thing she latched on to were the talking points McCain's operatives handed her.



Oh and speaking of Palin, make sure you know the difference between the myth and the facts, care of Rolling Stone.

Letterman Rips McCain A New One For Standing Him Up

At first Letterman was ok with John for cancelling on the account of rushing back to Washington to "work on the economy." Yet Dave quickly found out that was stood up for Katie Couric, who was taping an interview with the candidate while Dave was doing his show. Well lets just say that Dave wasn't too happy with it.

What Is Roe V Wade All About? Don't Ask Cindy McCain

Cindy McCain may not be the one that is running for President, but when it comes to issues that affect women, you'd think she'd at least know the basic facts of a few issues. One of the most important social debates that Republicans have used effectively as a wedge is abortion rights. Democrats want to keep Roe v. Wade on the books, keeping abortion legal for those that make the choice to have one. So when Cindy went on Katie Couric's show, a simple answer, either wanting to keep the practice legal and disagreeing with her husband and Sarah Palin, or toeing the party line.

Check out what she had to say:

Couric: And do you believe Roe V. Wade should be overturned?

McCain: No. no.

Couric: No. Why not? Your husband does.

McCain: No. I don't think he does.

Couric: He believes it should be overturned. That's what he told me, and that it should go to the states.

McCain: Well, in that respect. Yes, yeah, I do. I understand what you're saying now. It's a states issue.

Couric: So, you believe it should be overturned or shouldn't be overturned.

McCain: I believe it's a states issue. That I do believe.

Oh dear. OH, DEAR. The campaign later clarified that Cindy McCain does not believe Roe v. Wade should be overturned, even though, you might know this already but, it was the express purpose of the Roe decision not to let abortion become a "states issue."

It seems that she doesn't have a clue as to what she thinks. Also, the campaign itself doesn't really know what is going on if they allowed that "opinion" to be clarified that implies she opposes her husband after agreeing with him. It looks like Sarah Palin's mom isn't the only family surrogate that needs a large dose of GOP message control.

CBS Defends Defenseless McCain Interview

By now, I know that when John McCain does an interview, he is bound to lie about something that he purports to take a stand on. He will also lie when Barack Obama's position makes him look like a weak and ineffective leader. What I'd like to see from the press is that they call him on his deception, not for them to actively help McCain sound better by editing his answers. Once the blogosphere, Keith Olbermann and eventually other outlets caught on that CBS screwed around with the interview, they came back not with an apology, but this piece of crap.

From The Politico:

"As all news organizations do with extended interviews, last night’s Obama and McCain interviews were edited to fit the available time and to give viewers a fair expression of the candidates' major differences," CBS spokeswoman Jennifer Farley emailed. "The full transcript and video were and still are available at cbsnews.com."

That is one trick the traditional media excels in. Claiming that it is online is great for the percentage of people that look up their news on the web, but as anyone knows, the news has a much deeper impact when it is televised. If CBS was really short of time, they should have edited out whole questions and their subsequent answers, not mish-mash answers to different questions.

Also, CBS and Couric should take less questions so that you can follow up on important matters. Couric failed on that by not pointing out that the Anbar Awakening started happening before the surge was a twinkle in Bush's eye. It is the job of the press to get to the bottom of things, not simply to bend over and let the candidate shove their bullshit wholesale to the public.

What a disgrace! Jeers to CBS and Couric for that shameless interview....and equally horrendous defense of the matter.

McCain Rewrites History Again

And Katie Couric, the expert journalist that she is, doesn't bother calling him on his lie.

The Answer Is No

The "media" talked yesterday about the run up to the war and the failure to ask the tough questions of George Bush. The NBC/CBS roundtable below suggests that the Administration threatened to cut access if they did stories the Pentagon and the White House weren't nice to them. Hindsight may be clearer for these anchors, but this is suppposed to be journalism and they failed at their jobs, miserably.

Katie Leaving CBS, Off To Do A Job More Suited For Her

Practically since the beginning of Katie Couric's appearance on the CBS Evening News, critics (like myself) have been pointing out her less than par coverage of the news and the subsequent abysmal ratings that she brought to the network compared to ABC and NBC. Powerful execs like Les Moonves have helped keep her in place despite the embarrassment, though now it might just be too much, even for Les.

From The Wall Street Journal:

After two years of record-low ratings, both CBS News executives and people close to Katie Couric say that the "CBS Evening News" anchor is likely to leave the network well before her contract expires in 2011 -- possibly soon after the presidential inauguration early next year.

Ms. Couric isn't even halfway through her five-year contract with CBS, which began in June 2006 and pays an annual salary of around $15 million. But CBS executives are under pressure to cut costs and improve ratings for the broadcast, which trails rival newscasts on ABC and NBC by wide margins.

Her departure would cap a difficult episode for CBS, which brought Ms. Couric to the network with considerable fanfare in a bid to catapult "Evening News" back into first place. Excluding several weeks of her tenure, Ms. Couric never bested the ratings of interim anchor Bob Schieffer, who was named to host the broadcast temporarily after "Evening News" anchor Dan Rather left the newscast in the wake of a discredited report on George W. Bush's National Guard service.

Yes, it has been a rough couple of years for CBS, but really they brought it on themselves. Though they are long standing national network and in time they can recover. So what will the esteemed Katie Couric do with herself? Perhaps she can fit into something more her size, like taking over for Internet extraordinaire the extreme pompous ass Larry King at CNN.

One possible new job for Ms. Couric: succeeding Larry King at CNN. Mr. King, who is 74 years old, has a contract with the network into 2009. CNN President Jon Klein, a CBS veteran with close ties to some at the network, has expressed admiration for Ms. Couric's work, and the two are friends. They had lunch in late January, and the anchor attended Mr. Klein's birthday party in March. Time Warner Inc.'s CNN said, "Larry King is a great talent who consistently delivers the highest profile guests, and we have no plans to make a change." Through a publicist, Mr. King declined to comment.

Mr. King's talk-show slot at CNN might be a better fit than evening-newscast anchor for Ms. Couric, who is 51. She made her reputation as a skilled interviewer when she was an anchor at the "Today" show on General Electric Co.'s NBC network.

See, sometimes it isn't what you know....but who you know (and to be fair to Katie, that you can talk to them on air).

Even Miss USA Looks Down On Katie Couric

Miss USA of 2007 has high hopes after winning her crown, but she does have principles. Rachel Smith eventually wants to trade her tiara in for a crack at journalism, reporting on stories and whatnot. One person she definitely does not want to emulate is Katie Couric. Rachel must be following the blogs or at least watching Couric and seeing her failures first hand. Obviously her words reached the sensitive egotistical ears of CBS' number one failure.

From The Daily News:

Miss USA Rachel Smith tells us she wants to get into journalism, but something tells me she won't be applying to the "CBS Evening News."

"I always wanted to be a reporter — maybe some TV. Who knows? Some serious news — but some modeling, too," she said at the Women in Entertainment Empowerment Network event last week.

"I just don't want to end up like Katie Couric. I want people to take me seriously."

Ouch!

(Couric's rep later responded: "If she continues to offer such profound insight, she will not have to worry about anyone taking her seriously.")

I for one take Rachel very seriously. She is astute enough to see a pretend journalist when one comes across the screen. Take that Katie!

Couric Needs A Mentor Like Lara Logan

Katie's performance in Iraq was down right miserable and a pathetic attempt at shillery for the President. CBS is losing money on her at an incredible rate. However, all is not lost at CBS. They still have reporters like Lara Logan.

Lara does not hide behind bodyguards and show up at staged events like the al-Shorja market that is in Indiana central Baghdad. She does not parrot Bush's talking points on the evening news, that is what his interruptions during Prime Time are for. Let him remind the public why they hate the President for his miserable war.

Lara knows how to get it done and her reporting is hard-hitting and makes a difference, like this article about how billions in our taxpayer dollars is wasted in Afghanistan. Unfortunately the link shows Katie's face at the top of the screen, but the powerful words below are from Ms. Logan. If anything, Logan should be introducing Katie to how things get done, not how to fake the news.

The Darling Of The GOP: Katie Couric

This is hardly surprising but definitely a confirmation of what Katie Couric has been up to lately. Her little soiree into Iraq was the perfect boost for George Bush and his talking points this week. General Petraeus was obviously going to stump for the President in front of Congress earlier this week, but Katie gives the public an illusion of a neutral observer. Of course, we know better than that. Nevertheless, the GOP has added her to the memos they pass around to their party faithful.

From RawStory:

Despite their near constant scorn of the "liberal" media, Republicans these days can't seem to get enough enough of third-ranked evening newscaster Katie Couric, whose reporting from Iraq recently seemed to give credence to White House arguments about "progress" in Iraq.

Couric's reports were a top line in a Republican talking-point memo sent to GOP lawmakers last week.

Roll Call's Heard on the Hill gossip column reported that Couric's positive assessments of Iraq, filed when the anchor spent four days reporting there, were pointed out to members of Congress as they prepared for this week's testimony from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on the results of President Bush's troop surge.

"She's our sweetheart -- at least for now," an unnamed Republican told the column.

And just like clockwork, GoOPers like Senator Inhofe (R-OK) and Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ) began touting her hard-hitting nonsense. CBS reacted rather harshly to viewers that criticized her tour of Iraq last week as reported by Crooks and Liars, I wonder why?

Hmmm.

Katie Couric Hearts George Bush

If you don't already know or believe it, then watch this video. It isn't hard to hear his talking points coming out of her mouth.

Katie Couric: If CBS Doesn't Work Out, The White House Could Be A Good Gig

Every time I read something about or from Katie Couric I just want to cringe. Her latest gambit is reporting from Iraq during the week before the Petraeus report (not the one that was already finished, the doctored version presented by the White House). Amazingly enough, her words are strangely similar to those coming from the Grand Poobah's mouth when he visited Anbar province a couple of days ago.

From WCBS-TV:

"We hear so much about things going bad, but real progress has been made there in terms of security and stability," Couric said Tuesday. "I mean, obviously, infrastructure problems abound, but Sunnis and U.S. forces are working together. They banded together because they had a common enemy: al Qaeda."

(snip)

"The spike in police has really been significant," Couric said. "The incidents in Iraq have gone down dramatically."

Katie says that if only we restore basic services, everything will be just peachy in Iraq. Wow, Bush's surge must really be working. The only problem is that little things like reality get in the way of Bush's claims and Couric's "reporting." Both of them probably tune out reports like this one, showing the fear in the lives of ordinary Iraqis.

Who reads the Washington Post anyways, right? Certainly not the President with hand fed clippings by whoever is left at the White House. Who knows where Katie gets her information....I'm thinking they brought along a teleprompter for her short visit over there.

Hey Katie, Tony Snow is leaving his spot in the Bush Administration next week....you know you could certainly beat out Dana Perino for his position.

Save Your Tears On Katie Couric

By now its a foregone conclusion that the addition of Katie Couric to the CBS Evening News was a colossal mistake. Once proud and formidable, CBS is dead last among the network news programs on weekday evenings. She has been criticized on everything from her dressing habits to the choices made on interviews. Now she is out and crying about what a bad move it was to come to CBS and how it is everyone's fault but her own.

From The Huffington Post:

"People are very unforgiving and very resistant to change," Couric said in an interview with New York magazine. "The biggest mistake we made is we tried new things."

Couric's move to CBS has been a bust so far. The evening newscast's ratings are deep in third place, and CBS has rolled back some of the changes it made last fall to shake up the format. Couric conducts fewer interviews, an outside opinion segment was scrapped and the anchor admits she's even dressing down a little to give her critics less ammunition.

(snip)

Couric admitted there are days when she wishes she hadn't made the move to CBS.

"Of course," she said. "I'm human. I'm not going around `dee-da dee-da dee.' I have days when I'm like, `Oh my God, what did I do?' But for some weird reason, they don't happen that often."

It seemed like all Couric has done at CBS is go 'dee-da dee-da dee.' Choosing Rush Limbaugh as a newsworthy interview was pathetic. You would have never seen Edward Murrow perform as poorly as she has in the last few months. And he didn't need an enormous salary for it either. While alumni of the position have brought credibility to the CBS broadcast, Katie has done nothing but detract from it.

But is it all Katie's fault? The state of journalism today is precarious at best. There was a management decision to bring Katie in with a huge salary, banking on looks and her fluff from The Today Show. The sensationalism that the media chooses today centers around Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, not the scandals that the White House embroils itself in on a daily basis. Apparently celebrities draw better ratings that the ongoing degradation of our Constitution and liberties in general. At one time news was about things that impacted people's lives, now it is used for people to escape from the real world and into the ridiculousness of celebrity.

Katie Couric's Demise

The popular host of NBC's Today Show made the switch to CBS last year for a huge salary and in a more prominent role as anchor for their storied Evening News program. Nowadays her questionable performance has left the network far back in third place behind NBC and ABC. The lack of coverage on important issues and focus on fluff has heads spinning at CBS.

From PopMatters:

Despite her A-list celebrity, her $15 million salary, and a promotional blitz worthy of a Super Bowl, the former star of NBC’s “Today” has failed to move the Nielsen needle on No. 3 “Evening News” since her debut seven months ago.

In a bottom-line business like television, that’s a cardinal sin. Already-low morale in the news division is dropping, says a veteran correspondent there.

“It’s a disaster. Everybody knows it’s not working. CBS may not cut her loose, but I guarantee you, somebody’s thinking about it. We’re all hunkered down, waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

In media everything is hush-hush until the announcement is actually made. CBS can deny all they want, but the facts do not lie. Her abilities as the solo anchor are abysmal to say the least. Inviting Rush Limbaugh on, heartlessly going after Elizabeth Edwards and the recent plagarism scandal has shown that the $15 million a year that CBS is shelling out is a huge waste of money.

Insiders say that she probably won't leave the network, but instead be demoted to another position inside the network. Of course it will play out to look like a smooth transition for Katie. That's just how the network news works. Behind the scenes the executives are sweating bullets, desperately waiting to get her as far away from the anchor desk as possible.

Shame On Katie Couric

As everyone knows now, Elizabeth Edwards is suffering from incurable cancer. The breast cancer has spread to her bones and treatment can only slow the process of the disease. Hopefully western medicine can give her a long life but to Elizabeth, every moment counts and she shows it in her personality. She wants her husband to run for office and is committed to the big picture. She is truly a remarkable lady.

However some people do not see it that way. Republicans and their mouthpieces like Rush Limbaugh decry them for continuing in the race. It is not surprising to hear disgraces like Limbaugh to talk trash about the Edwards' family, but for a mainstream media host to parrot his attacks is horrendous. That is exactly what Katie Couric did in her interview of John and Elizabeth Edwards.

From Crooks and Liars:

Katie Couric: Your decision to stay in this race has been analyzed, and quite frankly judged by a lot of people. And some say, what you're doing is courageous, others say it's callous. Some say, "Isn't it wonderful they care for something greater than themselves?" And others say, "It's a case of insatiable ambition." You say?

Katie Couric: Some people watching this would say, "I would put my family first always, and my job second." And you're doing the exact opposite. You're putting your work first, and your family second.

You can find the full transcript and video here. The Edwards' took her 'concern troll' attacks with an honorable approach. Elizabeth seemed horrified at one question but handled themselves very nicely despite her veiled attacks. Couric isn't fooling me, and her fake concern for the Edwards family shouldn't trick anyone else either.