To be precise, I watched the first segment of the Couric interview and posted my thoughts on an earlier thread re: Russia and threats from the Pacific. I later read about the other segments, including one on the Supreme Court. And to be clear, I did not mean to imply earlier that her comments are frequently obtuse, and require *interpretation*; only that one particular comment on Russia, which many said they did not understand at all, made sense to me in light of some other articles I had read about U.S. defense systems based in Russia.

I'm sorry my posts give you pain, but even after posting earlier, I still can't think of a Supreme Court case I would have offered up myself in response to Couric's question, from a McCain campaign perspective. You could talk U.Michigan and affirmative action, but McCain isn't running against affirmative action. Or go back to old chestnuts like Miranda, but McCain isn't running on *law and order,* and even Justice Rehnquist came around to accepting it. Maybe Lawrence v. Texas, with its use of international law, but who wants to defend laws criminalizing gay sex? Truth is, most of the Warren/Berger landmarks are well established in our society, and cases in the last 15 years have not been that controversial. People have mentioned Exxon and some punitive damage cases, but I think the point of Couric's question was: you are a conservative running *against* judicial activism. So, let's see some examples of it you would overturn. Other than Roe, it really is hard to think of any, from a conservative perspective.

By the way, salon posters, I am glad to see more and more people calling her "Sarah Palin" or "Palin," instead of dehumanizing references to trophy candidate and so forth. You can call her whatever you want, of course, and probably will. I'm just saying, I think it's good for both her and her critics if you can operate on a playing field of humanization.

Joe is about as schmaltzy as it gets. He was on the *new* Fox Show last weekend with Mike Huckabee. It was a real duel to see which one could out-dogpatch the other.

That said, how can you not look at this and smile? Same with Joe Sixpack, Pitbull with Lipstick, even the dreaded reference to "that one" in the McCain/Obama debate. Even when the Republicans are tearing each other apart, they get all the good lines. Whack-job, diva. The Hank Williams song - "the McCain Palin Tradition" - is a scream.

Tonight, I watched about 30 seconds of the Obama-thon and would have gladly called and paid them money to make it stop, if the remote control had not been invented. It was worse than the "private moments with Al" scenes in the global warming flick. No wonder the comedians spend all their time on John and Sarah. There's simply no good alternative.

With all due respect, I don't think you established a very good case for these women.

First, their *greatest hits* are all double leg take-downs on Republicans. That makes them different from Dan Rather's generation, how?

Second, isn't Katie Couric scheduled to be booted out the door in '09? You mention her ratings boost, and maybe I missed something in the article, but is she or is she not permitted to stay past the election?

Third, moments like the Campbell Brown throwdown at the RNC are not terribly illuminating, in terms of journalism. They may spotlight some insufferable spin by a campaign flack, but do they do more than that?

Fourth, if you live long enough, you see some double standards. For example, Campbell is credited with *spotlighting* Palin's lack of executive military decisions. Just like in 1988, when journalists *spotlighted* Dan Quayle had just one legislative achievement -- the Jobs Training Partnership Act he co-authored with Ted Kennedy (I rememeber it because Quayle mentioned it so often, in his defense). Of course, if similar *spotlighting* had been applied to Obama, one would find zero executive decisions, and nothing even an impressive legislatively as the JTPA. Obviously, no one made a fuss about those resume gaps during the DNC.

Fifth, I like Rachel Maddow, but think she is underserved by being Part II of the Olbermann hour. I gave her show a chance, briefly, to see if she could bring the same fire she had as a panelist to some freewheeling discussions of her own. Answer: no. What I saw was a boilerplate, anti-Republican echo chamber.

Finally, Campbell Brown has the most potential of the three, but she needs to remember she seemed like a nice person as well as a journalist when she came on the scene (I think it was on NBC or MSNBC). Her persona, both on camera and in her web column, now seems somewhat off-putting, at least to me. If I were her, I would not be afraid to dial it down a notch and go for more of a blended image of warmth and smarts (I think she has potential for both), and keep focused on *real* journalism (i.e., questions which illicit new information) instead of grandstanding. If she did that, I might start watching CNN again, after the election.