McCain's "Base" or Surge!, Surge!, Surge!, Surge!

As luck would have it, I watched the CBS Evening News for the first time in months last night and managed to catch Katie Couric's now infamous interview with John McCain. There's been a lot of hubbub about how CBS doctored the interview to edit out a huge gaffe where Surgey McSurge utterly botched the history of the surge he had supposedly masterminded while errantly accusing Obama of exactly the same sin. CBS then replaced that gaffe with an answer to an earlier question where the Surgester charmingly blasted Obama with committing treason.

Of course, when I watched that interview I didn't know about the creative cut and paste. But it was still a pretty disgusting piece of journalism, even taken at face value. The McCain interview followed immediately after an interview with Obama in which Couric grilled him about the "success" of the surge. Fair enough. Nothing wrong with tough questions, and Big O handled them reasonably well. But the Dr. Surgenstein interview was one giant powderpuff. Rather than grilling Saint Surgesa, Couric just baited him to attack Obama over and over again without any critical apparatus whatsoever. It made me think of the times, back when Couric was just starting out behind the CBS anchor desk, that she'd bring out Rush Limbaugh as an expert commentator. What the hell has happened to CBS? They used to be a real news organization.